Awake
by lostrocket
Summary: In which Rhett Butler has bad dreams, and the events of 1871 unfold a little bit differently.
1. Chapter 1

_Warning: this story opens with some mature, but not explicit sexual content. It's the strongest this story gets so I really don't want to immediately consign it to the "M" category. Additional author's notes at the end of this chapter._

 **Part I - Charleston**

Scarlett's black hair, deeper and more lustrous than the night outside, spilled starkly across white pillows and formed a midnight halo around her flushed face. The room was heavy with quiet, and dimly lit - almost glowing - with low light from an indeterminate source. The sheets were bunched up by her naked hips, their writhing contortions pulling the damp cotton into rumpled furrows. Her skin glistened; the pale light of lamp and flame broke across beads of sweat until she seemed to glitter, until it might have been diamonds scattered on white limbs, rubies crowning her breasts, onyx streaming in her hair. Her hands dripped with an impression of jewels as she raised them to thread her slender fingers through strands of golden hair, matted with sweat and clinging to show the fine shape of the skull beneath, of the head she pressed against the gentle rise of her abdomen.

"Ashley," she whispered, in that dreamy, absent voice she used only for her lover. "Oh, Ashley."

Slender, fine-boned shoulders rose as he moved over her, covering the wealth of her body. Scarlett clasped her arms around the pale shoulders, and the dimpled curves of her knees showed against his narrow hips as she lifted her body to receive him. Ashley buried his face in the sweet, sloping curve between her neck and shoulders, the dampness of his hair deepening its color to tarnished gold. Her reddened lips curved so sweetly when she moaned his name again.

Scarlett opened her eyes, and they were soft like pale green peridot, hazy, unfocused, lost in desire. "Ashley," she repeated, over and over again, in time with the rhythm of her lover's hips. Sometimes her voice caught on a syllable or crested in a whimper. Her perfect, smoothly rounded nails left pink crescents on Ashley's tender shoulders.

She looked past the golden head, looked at first without seeing, beyond Ashley into the hazy room. He knew when she saw him, when limpid, desirous eyes hardened into dark emerald and caught him in their glare.

"Never you," she said, and her knees rose higher along the smooth sides of Ashley's body. Her hands sharpened, claw-like, the marks on her lover's back becoming red and angry as she gripped him more tightly to her breast. "Never. You."

Scarlett moaned, and he could see the answering rhythm of her hips rising to meet Ashley's thrusting body. The moan spilled into a gasp that was her lover's name again. Silently, desperately, he pleaded with her not to look away; to give him that much, at least. Her wicked, feline eyes narrowed, then she moved her hands from Ashley's back and shoulders and cupped his head, pulling his face over hers for a kiss and blocking her eyes from his sight. All that was left for him were the sounds of love that she had saved for Ashley Wilkes, the cries of passion he had tried to steal, and a heart forever closed to him.

Her voice rose in pitch, crying out clear as a bell, "Ashley!"

...

Rhett Butler woke with a start, kicked out of sleep as if a sharp noise had jerked him awake. Indeed, his ears were ringing; but after a moment, consciousness imposed order on his thoughts and he knew the disturbance and its echoes to be a phantom sound. A dream. He was drenched in sweat, the sheets knotted into ropes around him. No breeze came through the open windows of his bedroom to carry the cooling sea air. The Charleston night was humid and still.

Groaning, Rhett slipped his arm free from a noose of cotton and swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed. Elbows on knees, he dropped his head into his palms, and dug his fingers through damp hair. The room was well lit by Bonnie's lamp and after a moment, his ears found the hushed susurration of her breathing and he tried to match the calming rhythm with his own. Nightmares, it seemed, ran in the family. He knew they had plagued his wife for years, then there had been Bonnie's terrors. He had suffered through his own for two years now, and they had grown only more vivid - and frequent - in the last three months. In the months since the birthday party for Ashley Wilkes. In the months since the night he had forced himself back into his wife's bed. Had forced her—?

Rhett swallowed another frustrated groan that might wake his sleeping daughter. He grabbed his dressing gown, slung over the back of a chair pulled purposefully close to the bed. Not even for Bonnie could he bring himself to sleep in clothes in the thick heat of a low country summer, but he kept a dressing gown within reach so he could make himself decent when her nightmares roused him. If she ever decided to slip from her small bed to seek him out, he might have to make the sacrifice. Thus far, whatever frightened her so in dreams kept her rooted to the safety of her bed until her rescuer arrived.

Bonnie. Rhett stopped to kneel by the head of her small cot, and tenderly brushed aside a black curl that humidity had stuck to her pink cheek. At least, there was Bonnie. He watched her sleep for a moment before moving to one of the tall windows that opened on the front of the house, overlooking that most unfortunately named river. He braced his hands against the varnished frame, gripping hard to still the twitching muscles of his arms.

They had been in Charleston with his mother for more than three months, and he feared he had very nearly worn out his welcome. Bonnie was the charming apple of her grandmother's eye, but his mother was less indulgent with her wayward son. Rhett could put on a good show for company and in public, but the forced intimacy of living under the same roof for weeks had done him no favors. His mother had questions he had no wish to answer, and her uncanny ability to know all his misdeeds had not weakened in the intervening years since his childhood. She disapproved of his drinking almost as vocally as Bonnie, but even Bonnie's distaste for the smell of whisky on her Daddy was not strong enough to keep him sober these days.

The waters beyond the Battery were placid, serenely reflecting the bright glitter of the spangled midnight sky. The city itself was ranged invisibly around and behind him. It seemed he looked out from the edge of the world into an emptiness only relieved by the stars. The ringing in his ears faded gradually into the hum of the river. If anyone else in the city was also awake, they were far from this quiet corner at the end of the earth.

What he mightn't give for the days when he could expend his frustrated energy in the contest of wills between himself, the sea, and the blockade, when he could outrace her memory on the tide and bury dreams in exhausted sleep.

Dreams! Rhett slumped in a chair on the piazza, crossing his legs at the ankles and resting the back of his head on the elegantly curved back. What a ridiculous thing to plague him at his age. He didn't remember being so aware of his dreams before. What had he dreamed about, before her? Probably they had been such peaceful, easy nights that he hadn't thought them worth remembering at the time. Blissful reveries, not this torture served up by his subconscious almost nightly.

Rhett now remembered all his dreams, and they were not pleasant. They had started after he had been exiled from their marital bed. Not that first night; the first dream had come more than a week later. He could no longer remember what might have happened to cause it, after so many days had passed since the initial trauma. Compared to the last few months, it had been completely innocuous, in retrospect not even worth the moniker of nightmare. He had simply dreamed of Ashley's hands running through her loose, long hair, an almost hypnotic movement that had repeated for what had felt like hours before finally his disgusted brain had ejected him from sleep.

The dreams were unquestionably worse now, and utterly deserving to be called nightmare. He had dreamed the first one while still in her bed, slumbering with her in his arms for the first time in two years. Reality, and recent experience, had joined forces to make the dream the most vivid - the most horrifying—

Every curve of her body, newly rediscovered, was fresh in his mind. The cadence of her breath with a hitch of pleasure, released in a moan or fading away in a sigh was newly discovered as she had opened for him as never before. The dreams cannibalized his memory and offered it back to him as voyeur as she gave herself instead to Ashley, over and over again before he escaped back into consciousness. The sheets were still damp with both their sweat when he had fled, unable to face her. She had offered him one night - or he had taken it, and Rhett knew he would have taken it, had she not seemed to melt willingly into his arms at last. He couldn't bear to see regret in her eyes, couldn't even bear to see hate, though it wouldn't have been the first time.

The subsequent nights at Belle's had done nothing to ease his mind. He had escaped Atlanta in the hopes that distance might - but here he was, sitting in his dressing robe on the piazza because he couldn't sleep. He was most assuredly far too old for this.

"Daddy?" Bonnie's voice drifted through the open window. Half-asleep, edged with her fear, it was not a call of imperious demand but the soft pleading of a little girl who needed him. Yes, at least there was Bonnie.

* * *

 _This was inspired by a story in which Rhett reveals he has his own nightmares, and briefly details their content. I found the possibilities of Rhett's dreamscapes too tempting to resist. I chose not to set off the dream narratives (by italicizing or using text breaks), a conceit which (I think) worked very well in some instances as I wanted to blur that transition, but at other times it may be more confusing than effective: fair warning given._


	2. Chapter 2

"Rhett, you cannot take Bonnie to New Orleans. I won't hear of it."

"Mother, I thank you for your hospitality but clearly I have lingered past the bounds of your patience."

"That is not what I mean. I will be frank, for apparently you need someone to speak reason. Do you think I do not know you drink every night? That you go out most nights after you have put your daughter to bed? If you intend to do the same in New Orleans, well, I suppose that is your decision but I will not hear of you taking Bonnie there with you. Leave her here with me - I adore her. Or better still, bring her home and go on by yourself."

"Mother—"

His mother stood abruptly and walked behind him. He turned, intending to continue the conversation, until he realized her destination. She had gone to the oversized family Bible which stood in a corner of the room on a tall stand. Apparently idly, she began to turn the pages.

"You are so like your father," she said, in a murmur not too quiet to reach his ears.

Rhett rose stiffly to his feet. "Pray tell me, Mother, how that is. I fail to grasp the similarities, myself."

The elder Mrs. Butler drew a fingertip slowly down a page he could not see. Three quarters of the way down the large book, she stopped. "He blacked out your name and, as best he could, your memory as well. I hate to see you repeating your father's mistakes."

"I would never do that to Bonnie."

"I am not talking about your daughter, my dear."

Rhett's jaw tightened. "As I said, I have clearly overstayed my welcome. Bonnie and I—"

"Go home, darling," his mother interrupted, turning from the Bible to look back at her son. "You have been here too long, and not because I no longer care to shelter you. You have been away from home too long. Bonnie needs her mother."

"Bonnie is just fine."

"Rhett," she smiled sadly, "even you have to admit she misses her mother. She has said so herself."

Rhett made no answer. It was unfortunately the truth. Bonnie asked at least once a day, usually more often, for Scarlett.

"People started to talk months ago," his mother continued. "It was unusual when you arrived here alone, but not unheard of. And you put everyone off quite nicely by explaining her - ah - unusual interests which make it difficult for her to leave town. But to linger...Rhett, six months! It is no longer a question of traveling without your wife, it no longer matters how understandable you tried to make that sound. You need to go home."

"Either I go home with Bonnie, or I leave here without her?"

His mother did not answer.

"You can't stop a father from taking his daughter."

She sighed. "Of course not. I have no right nor recourse should that be your course of action. But as your mother, Rhett, please listen to me."

"You do not know what you ask of me," Rhett said, his voice strained and tension proclaimed in the taut lines of his swarthy face. It was the closest he had let her get to the truth in the entire time spent in her house, no matter how obliquely or directly she had attempted to pry.

Gently, she answered her son, "Can it be so bad? Rhett, she is your wife - and you have a beautiful daughter—"

Rhett's face relaxed suddenly as his mask returned. Only the bleakness in his eyes gave away any hint of turmoil.

"Of course," he said blandly. "You are right. Bonnie misses Wade and Ella. Two stodgy, adult Charlestonians and a simple-minded nanny are hardly entertaining company. You win, Mother." He crossed the room to press a cool, dry kiss to her cheek. "I will make the arrangements for our return to Atlanta."

...

It was a Tuesday afternoon, but Rhett had to use his key to open the door of the house on Peachtree Street. It was a difficult juggling act with his sleeping daughter in his arms. Bonnie had been up most of the night and fallen asleep only just before the train had pulled into Atlanta. Not the noise of the bustling depot, nor the jostling of the cab ride home had roused her completely, and she hung limply off his shoulder, her even breaths sweet across his neck.

Someone should have been home. Pork, for he had traveled without the valet. Mammy, looking after his stepchildren. In the middle of the day, Scarlett would be at the store - or the mills, as he thought it unlikely she had learned any lesson from the firestorm she had caused in April. With Melanie's obvious trust buffering her from the worst consequences of her innocent indiscretion, his foolish wife was unlikely to have modified her behavior in the least. No, Scarlett wouldn't have been home - but _someone_ should have been.

"Mist' Rhett, ain't nobody here!" exclaimed Prissy, breathlessly, behind him. Rhett turned slowly, so as not to jostle Bonnie. Prissy was breathing rapidly. The girl must have run back to the front door from the servant's house. And she must have been spooked, to move so uncharacteristically fast.

"Wait here," Rhett commanded quietly. He left Prissy in the front hall and carried Bonnie into the parlor. The drapes were tightly drawn, velvet blockades denying entrance to the fresh October air. The air inside the house was stale and curiously odorless. There was no tang of cigar smoke. That wasn't completely unexpected. He hadn't smoked in his own house in over six months, and most of the husbands of his wife's horde preferred to chew. But in the middle of the afternoon there was no hint of food in the air signifying supper preparations. Not even the barest floral trace from the bouquets which usually graced the hall table, the dining room sideboard, the tables in the parlor. As he laid Bonnie gently on a sofa, he saw those tables were empty.

No scent of wet dog, muddy shoes, frogs snuck in from the creek, pencils or crayons - no sign that any children lived in the house at all.

And no perfume, no scent of powder or the faintly chalky smell of her rouge.

Rhett draped his long coat over Bonnie and rejoined Prissy in the front hall. The piercing afternoon sunlight falling into the hall from the open front door made the lightest sheen of dust glitter on the dark furniture. A few days at most since it had last been cleaned. If the air was less stale, he might have thought they hadn't been gone long.

"No one was in the house?" he asked her, too quietly for his voice to carry far.

"No suh."

"Did you stop at the stables?"

"No suh, I run back here right away."

"Stay here with Bonnie. Take her upstairs to play if she wakes up before I return."

"But Mist' Rhett—"

"Quiet," he said, harshly. He didn't care to hear Prissy's feeble protestations of fright. "Let Bonnie sleep. I won't be gone long."

Prissy mumbled her response and her face pulled into a sulk, but she ambled obediently into the parlor and took a seat near the window.

Rhett started in the office on the main floor. It was neat and tidy, with the same thin layer of dust he had noticed in the hall. Not even an ink pot was left out on the desk, no sign of recent use. And no note, which was the reason he had started in that room.

The upstairs was the same. No sign of life or even recent habitation. The nursery was impossibly well-ordered, Scarlett's vanity was uncharacteristically uncluttered (assuming that she hadn't changed her untidy ways in the last two years, for it had been that long since he had cause to observe her there. On the only occasion he had been in her bedroom in all that time, observing her furniture had not been in the forefront of his foggy mind). Most telling but not unexpected, Wade's and Ella's wardrobes were nearly empty. Scarlett's packed dressing room was a bit harder to evaluate, especially with his current lack of familiarity, but despite himself he still paid close attention to what she wore and there were several noticeable absences. He went into his own room, unchanged in his absence, and lacking what he still hoped to find.

A letter, a note, a card. There was no paper out of place, nothing crumpled and discarded in the waste bins or under the tables. No envelope propped on the pillows or pinned to a door. It had to be Tara, of course. But when? For how long?

He found himself back in her bedroom. He had avoided her for months and yet somehow, robbed of the confrontation for which he had finally steeled his nerves and heart, he felt cheated. _He_ had left _her_. She was not supposed to turn the tables. To leave no word - as her husband, he had _rights_ —

Rhett caught himself. The few rights she hadn't proscribed, he had certainly abdicated. The right to her bed; the right to any chance of love requited.

He looked around her bedroom again, unsure what he hoped to find and ignoring his self-admonitions. The towering bed with its thick feather-stuffed mattress loomed malevolently in his peripheral, demanding his attention. The pink and white linens seemed obscenely virginal in the shadow of his most recent memories from this room and in contrast with the dark, densely carved headboard and frame. The bed overwhelmed the balance of the room; and the small, plain step placed beside it so his petite wife could reach her own pillow unassisted seemed meager and somehow sad.

Looking away from the bed produced a strange feeling of victory, of accomplishment in conquering a seductive foe. Rhett moved at last to the long, narrow vanity. The white cloth which usually protected the surface was absent. The trays for bottles, jars, and cosmetic fripperies were almost empty, but the missing items were not scattered along the length of the table as was her wont. They were simply gone. A familiar gilded box sat centered below the enormous mirror which hung above the table, its many doors and drawers all hanging open and the velvet surfaces inside denuded of their glittering treasures.

Moving more slowly than he had on his way upstairs, Rhett went back down and through the rear of the house. He paused to sweep his gaze around the dining room, expecting nothing and finding it. There were no signs of any servants in the rooms that were their purview, the kitchen and the pantry. The house servants at least seemed to be gone, one and all. There was no one in the house to serve, but the stables would be another matter. There would be a few stablehands left behind to tend to the horses and Wade's pony-sized dog.

"Mist' Rhett! You's home, suh! An' lil miss?"

"Bonnie and I are both home, Elijah. And, it seems, no one else."

"Oh, no, suh. Miz Scarlett's been gone fuh weeks now. It's just me and Eustis back here foh the hawses."

Rhett directed the two young men to collect the luggage which their cab driver had piled on the veranda before he went back to the house. Weeks. Well that was a beginning. He would preserve at least the appearance of dignity and not pursue the details with a stable boy. The Wilkeses' home would be his next stop.

* * *

 _Thank you for the reviews. ffnet appears to be having some issues - I have received the email notifications of reviews, which are not yet showing on the site, though they are included in the review count. So weird! But I was able to read them so thank you all very much. Because these chapters are so short I plan to update more than once a week, though I am traveling away from home for the next four weekends and may have difficulty sticking to that until the travel is over, but I'll try to keep this moving!_


	3. Chapter 3

It was nearly supper time before Bonnie woke, hungry and cross and not at all shy of expressing herself. Rhett settled her with a piece of hard candy and the trio set out. With Bonnie on his hip and Prissy dogging his heels, they made a strange, short journey to the house on Ivy Street where the Wilkeses resided.

"Why, it's Captain Butler!" Melanie exclaimed before Bonnie, releasing Rhett's neck and reaching for her aunt, began to cry.

"Auntie! Hungry!" she wailed, no longer satisfied with the piece of candy (which was now stuck painfully in the short hairs at the back of Rhett's neck) and feeling quite betrayed by her father for not having had her supper at the ready.

With a rueful smile Rhett passed the little girl to Melanie. "She didn't sleep at all on the train last night," he explained, and Melanie understood by the deep circles under his eyes that Bonnie's wakefulness had meant his own as well. "She only just woke up and it seems there isn't much to serve for supper at home."

Melanie calmed the toddler with gentle pets and kisses. "Poor little darling, don't fret. Prissy, your mother is in the kitchen. Go on and see her and see if she can't send out plates for Miss Bonnie and Captain Butler—"

"Mrs. Wilkes, please don't trouble yourself on my account. A small goûtée for Bonnie would be more than generous."

Bonnie, with more tears, made known her reluctance to be parted from her aunt or to let her father out of her sight. Finally Beau was called in from the yard where he had been halfheartedly trying to amuse himself, an exercise which had become quite tiresome after these weeks without the constant companionship of his cousins. Beau was a general favorite of all the Hamilton-Kennedy-Butlers - except, perhaps, Rhett, although he was always more than deferential to the child. With Cousin Beau joining her at the scuffed table Bonnie acquiesced to release her death grip on her Aunt Melanie's hair and suffer her father to leave the room.

"Do sit down, Captain Butler," Melanie said firmly, showing him to a chair in the small parlor.

"Miss Melly," Rhett began, speaking more intimately as soon as they were seated. He leaned towards her slightly, then, seeing her blush, returned smoothly to a formal upright posture. "I'm sure you must know why I've come to see you," he said, his blank gambler's face perfectly concealing his hand. Melanie Wilkes, the moral epitome of her breed, could be firmly relied upon to discuss the matter at hand with demure reticence. Melanie would not address his conduct openly; to discuss even her former sister-in-law's marriage would be far too forward.

Melanie nodded, casting her soft brown eyes down modestly.

"She is gone to Tara, then?"

"Of course, Captain Butler," Melanie replied, in a tone which admonished him for a silly question but did not reproach his conduct which had necessitated this visit, the ignorance of his wife's activities engendered by his absence and utter lack of contact since the spring.

It had been necessary, of course. How could he have written? What could he have said, after April? And it would have weakened his resolve to stay away.

"The house was empty."

"Yes, she expected to be gone for quite some time. She took Mammy and Pork with her, of course. I - I am not sure about the others."

"How long ago?" he asked bluntly.

"Scarlett went to Tara at the end of July. She couldn't - ah - wait, any longer," Melanie blushed bright red and Rhett looked at her sharply.

"What do you mean, she couldn't wait?" he asked in a low, controlled voice.

It was not Melanie's place to tell the truth, nor was it in her nature to lie. "I - I simply cannot say, Captain Butler. Forgive me."

Something cold and hard knotted in his gut. Rhett nodded, but found he could no longer quite meet the gentle brown eyes across from him.

"Thank you, Miss Melly. I must take my leave of you, then. Thank you for the meal for Bonnie." Rhett stood and offered a sincere, respectful bow to his hostess. "If you need anything, you can reach me at the National, until I can get the house staffed again."

"Oh but Captain!" Melanie cried as she rose slowly to her feet, the back of one hand pressed against her back. "Won't you be going to Tara soon?"

Rhett's features did not change, though in better light a careful observer might have seen the faint blanching of the skin around his lips. "Tara is Scarlett's sanctuary. I shan't intrude. Bonnie and I will manage."

"You must go Tara," Melanie said quietly, with a soft voice like velvet-draped steel. Her hand lifted as if she meant to touch him, but, eying his powerful form askance, she seemed to think better of such contact.

Rhett bristled under his skin. Go to Tara! It was one thing to come home and face Scarlett on his terms, in a house that was as close to neutral territory as could be found. To follow at her skirts and chase her all the way to Tara was unthinkable.

The cold knot in his stomach poked at him sharply, bristling with emotion and insight he wished to keep at bay. Refusing to examine it too closely, he allowed only that his free will had been abrogated by his choices back in April. This extended absence had shown itself to be a grand but empty bluff. Scarlett held the cards, and he would have to face her hand with the house advantage on her side, not his.

"After all, it will be Ella's birthday soon," Melanie continued. Rhett smiled, recognizing that her addendum offered him an opportunity to save face.

"Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes," Rhett replied, reverting again to formality as they left the intimacy of the parlor. "We shall be at the hotel for the night. Is there anything you would like me to take with us in the morning? Any letters or presents to be delivered to Tara?"

"Thank you Captain Butler. I wrote to Scarlett just the other day, but that's already left with the post."

Melanie beamed up at Rhett with a joyful sincerity which shamed him for his cowardice, at the same time as he envied her her ignorance of the true state of his failing marriage. After last April and the long intervening months, _failed_ must be more accurate than _failing_. And now—

Again, Rhett shied away from the suspicious certainty Melanie's words had raised. After Bonnie - after Scarlett's revelation of that pregnancy and her actions after Bonnie's birth, some possibilities were simply too painful to be considered.

Rhett collected Bonnie from the dining room, her well-fed tummy making her drowsy again despite her upset sleeping schedule. Bonnie wrapped her pudgy little arms around her father's neck, and her head rested comfortably against his broad shoulder. With the reluctant Prissy again trailing behind them, the trio returned to the empty house on Peachtree Street to collect a portion of their luggage and put the remaining servants, the two young stable hands, to work readying the carriage. Given the lack of food or help, Rhett would still put them all up in the hotel for the night. They could leave for Jonesboro in the morning. He gave some thought to sending a telegram, to warn his unfamiliar in-laws before his unexpected visit brought trouble to their door, but decided Scarlett would have enough advantage over him already without giving her the benefit of forewarning as well. And she was unpredictable. He had expected to find her at home, to find the status quo uncomfortably maintained. She had already surprised him by absconding to Tara; God knew, if he warned her of his impending arrival, she might suddenly conceive of a desire to see her mother's family in Charleston.

Bonnie, having expected to see her mother at home, was displeased by the removal to the hotel and the lack of the promised reunion. An explosion of temper dispelled the sleepy satisfaction of earlier in the afternoon. She stormed and sobbed until Rhett's stomach, back, and shins promised to be black and blue from the sharp toes of her shoes which had kicked at him with all the power of a spoiled, thwarted toddler. It took the combined efforts of himself and Prissy to get the patent leather weapons off her feet. Disarmed, she quieted long enough for Prissy to change her into a clean nightgown, after which she started howling so loudly that when Rhett dismissed the servant, Prissy ran from the room with her palms flattened over her ears.

Tearstained, hiccoughing, and physically drained by her prolonged battle, Bonnie finally fell asleep sometime after midnight. She lay sprawled in the middle of the single large bed. Rhett grabbed one of the unused pillows and punched it into a corner of the long sofa in the sitting area. If he slept at all, the couch would do as well as a bed.

Rhett removed his shoes, coat, waistcoat, and cravat and carefully packed them away in one of the trunks. He lay on the sofa with his arms akimbo behind his head, resting tiredly against his thick wrists. The clop and clatter of hooves and wheels outside became ever more infrequent as he tried to relax, listening to Bonnie's breath as it evened to the cadences of sleep and matching his own to the sweet rhythm.

"Where have you been?" Rhett asked, moving to take her in his arms. Scarlett stepped out of his reach and threw an arch look over her shoulder.

"Don't tell me you don't know!" she teased, coyly fluttering her thick black lashes.

"I didn't mean to stay away so long," he offered, thinking she was still hurt over his long, silent absence.

"Oh," she answered with a shrug. "It doesn't matter."

"Haven't you missed me?" Rhett teased, trying entice her to play along.

"No, we haven't missed you," Scarlett answered. She turned to the man at her side, lifting her head to bestow a warm and loving smile even as her profile displayed the fullness of her heavily pregnant body.

Rhett drew back his arm and punched Ashley Wilkes in the head.

"You never did understand," Scarlett said, looking at him with clear pity in her green eyes. Rhett reached for her again, pulling her familiar slender form close until he could feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest and the sharp lines of her hip bones against his thighs. She came willingly and for one breathless moment it was just the two of them again, going up into the darkness together, and then suddenly she was pushing away from him and saying, "You'll hurt the baby."

Rhett looked down at the infant in her arms, wrapped in a white blanket which covered its head.

"I thought three were enough."

Scarlett laughed, with a sound so high-pitched and brittle it cast him back to the schoolroom and the unpleasant screech of chalk dragged the wrong way on the slate.

"Are you displeased, darling?" she asked. "I thought it didn't matter to you."

"I could never have too many babies with your hair, your eyes, your spirit." Scarlett smiled, a sweet, sharp smile.

"You are so good to Wade and Ella."

"I love them, because they are part of you."

"And this baby, Rhett?"

"Of course," he said at once, not even sensing the trap which had been sprung.

"No woman would want more children with a cad like you. I couldn't stand it."

Rhett was bewildered. "The baby—?"

She laughed again the high laugh which hurt his ears.

"Oh, it's not yours. But you will raise it, won't you Rhett? Just like Wade, and Ella?"

The trap closed on his heart with the piercing force of a bear clamp.

"Indeed!" he said coolly. "Well, who's the happy father? Ashley?" Somehow he forced the bitter words out, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking down, he was surprised not to find any trace of blood. It seemed impossible to say such things and not be cut by the very shape and sound of them.

"Of course. I've no objection to Ashley, or his children, you see. Ashley is a gentleman." The man in question was by her side again, his pale face unmarred by Rhett's earlier violence. Had he missed somehow? He flexed his hand and did not feel the soreness in the knuckles that should have remained after such a blow. Again, Scarlett laughed, but this time the light and cheerful sound was even more deafening than the sharp-edged cackle she had used before.

"Stop laughing," Rhett said through gritted teeth.

"I am laughing because I am so sorry for you," Scarlett answered, bending her face over the baby's.

"Sorry - for me?"

"Yes, sorry for you. You are nothing but a drunken beast who's been with bad women so long that you can't understand anything else but badness."

"You turned me out while you chased Ashley."

"You can't understand Ashley or me, and you will never understand. You've lived in dirt too long to know anything else. Here, take the baby." She abruptly thrust the child into his arms. "She's beginning to slobber."

Helplessly, Rhett took the small bundle and cradled it to his chest.

"You don't object, do you?" Scarlett questioned with apparent sincerity. "You will raise it? For me?"

Rhett held the baby so tightly it began to cry. "Oh, Rhett, do make it shut up. Or take it away if it won't stop crying. I have to go see to the mills. Come along, darling."

Rhett took one shameful, hopeful step towards his wife but she had slipped her arm through Ashley's.


	4. Chapter 4

The cloudless sky was a crisp autumnal blue over Jonesboro, with a bite in the air that turned Bonnie's plump arms pink. She had refused her coat, and Rhett had not forced the issue. Bonnie was in the same travel-stained dress she had now worn for two days, her breakfast had been nothing more than pastries and a few sips of milk, but to go against her will would have engendered only more horrible tantrums. Bonnie had always been spoiled, but more than two days of travel, with all the disturbance and excitement that entailed, had now completely overwhelmed her. Rhett and Prissy were reduced to immediate capitulation to the child's wishes to maintain whatever peace they could. Hopefully once they reached Tara, and Mammy, some sense of order could be restored.

For now, yet another piece of hard candy pacified an incipient tantrum long enough for Rhett to hire a wagon to take them to Tara. The driver knew Tara, of course; everyone in the County knew the O'Hara place. Wasn't that such a shame about Mr. O'Hara? But a blessing for the old man, who just hadn't been the same since he lost his wife during the war. Will Benteen had done well for himself, and for Tara, and hadn't he come up in the world to marry one of the O'Hara girls! Of course after what happened, no one else in the County would have had Suellen.

"Pardon me saying so, sir. I don't mean no offense but everyone knows what she did to Mr. O'Hara. Tweren't right."

Rhett murmured a noncommittal reply and bounced Bonnie on his knee. He had eventually heard the whole story from an outraged Scarlett, although even she had seemed confused if she was madder at Suellen for her part in causing Gerald's death, or that Suellen's plot hadn't worked and all that money had gone unclaimed. He was grateful that the driver's oblivious chatter did not demand any reply or participatory conversation on his part. As they neared the plantation his mind was racing ahead, tracing imagined country lanes to the shady porch of a house he had never seen but felt he knew intimately. He knew the wide central hall with doors at both ends to entice the breeze to blow through, the formal parlor with its portrait of her grandmother, the dining room where the family had prayed and the passage to the kitchen, the warm wood stairs and at the top, the bedroom with its cream-painted walls and the new blue curtains that had been replaced after the war. The vision was hazy, the dimensions of rooms growing and shrinking as his mind wandered through them, but still - he knew it.

The foolishness of this venture was becoming apparent. They had quite the neat set-up in Atlanta, he and Scarlett. Their separate rooms, her virginal sanctuary and his brightly lit haven for Bonnie. What would Scarlett do out here? She didn't appear to care about the gossip in Atlanta any more than he did, but her antagonistic rivalry with sister Sue had to be considered. Scarlett could still surprise him with what she chose to take on over. She socialized with the worst trash in town yet had chastised him for the appearance of excessive pride in fatherhood after Bonnie's birth. He was potentially walking into an even greater mess than he had originally considered, but it was far too late to change their plans now.

The hired wagon turned off the main road onto an avenue generously shaded by arching cedars. Gravel crunched under wagon wheels and hooves. The wagon bed creaked as Prissy moved, turning around and craning her neck for her first sight of home. As the drive curved, the trees fell away to reveal the modest white brick farmhouse situated on the green shore of a red sea. The front lawn was spread with clover and Bermuda grass and behind the house, the waves of red dirt rolled in fields emptied of cotton.

A wide veranda covered the front of the house, and as they drew nearer Rhett could make out dark forms moving in the shade. One figure stood and moved with swaying skirts before she was joined by another. The indeterminate people stood close together for a long moment, too deep in shadow for him to read their body language, much less decipher their identity. A third figure stood and crossed the porch, another woman with the bell of skirts about her. These last two people disappeared inside the house and the first woman walked the length of the porch to take a seat in a chair turned at an angle toward the side railing.

The driver pulled the wagon around in the driveway. Rhett could see her profile clearly now, a black silhouette against the bright afternoon sky. Scarlett did not turn to look at them. His lip curled down. She had never been motherly, but did she really care so little about their daughter whom she had not seen in six months?

Rhett paid the driver and directed him to leave the luggage on the drive. Someone could take it in later; if not a Tara servant, then Pork, who had made the earlier journey with the rest of his household. The forgotten kitten poked its head out of its basket and immediately made a break for freedom, dashing across the lawn and around the house. Prissy shuffled her feet eagerly, but he commanded her, "I'll want you to take Bonnie inside to Mammy after she's greeted her mother. Then you can take your liberty until supper time."

"Mother?" cried Bonnie, wriggling excitedly in Rhett's arms. "Where Mother?"

Rhett reached the foot of the short steps in two strides and set Bonnie down on the wood floor of the veranda. Her short, chubby legs worked vigorously as she ran to the figure seated at the far end. Rhett watched his wife, and saw the slim shoulders squaring up before she stood slowly and turned at last to greet her daughter. Rhett stared.

"Mother!" exclaimed Bonnie in an offended voice. "You're fat!"

No one laughed at the statement, delivered with all the rude frankness of a child. Scarlett raised stricken eyes in a white face to him, heedless of Bonnie's grasping hands which tugged at her long skirts.

Grateful for the years as a gambler which had forced him to perfect a blank poker face or lose his livelihood, Rhett knew his own face revealed nothing. "Prissy," he drawled with matching blandness, "Take Miss Bonnie inside."

"No!" refused Bonnie. "I want to stay with Mother!"

"Why don't you put on one of your new frocks to show your mother how pretty you look?" Rhett suggested.

"Yes," Scarlett said suddenly, in a raspy unfamiliar voice that Bonnie didn't know. "Mammy is - upstairs. In the nursery."

Bonnie condescended to be led away by Prissy, leaving the Butlers alone in the yard. Scarlett stood on the porch, one hand on the whitewashed railing, staring fixedly at some point past Rhett's shoulder. He studied her in silence. She seemed pale, and her cheeks were too hollow despite the bulk of her protruding belly. She was undeniably, heavily pregnant, and not blooming with maternal health as he remembered her from carrying Bonnie. He could no longer ignore the truth, as he had Melanie's hints, and his first feelings were of surprise; but was he more shocked that she had become pregnant, or that she hadn't, in his absence, terminated the pregnancy, as she had threatened to do with Bonnie? He had abandoned her, inexcusably abandoned her in the pitch of scandal. She didn't want children - didn't want _his_ children - and yet, there she was. The hard knot of anxiety which had developed during his conversation with Melanie wrenched painfully in his gut as he was finally forced to face Scarlett.

"You are looking pale, Mrs. Butler," he began, driven by those perverse impulses which always seemed to take over in her presence, to anger her and misdirect her and keep her sharp eyes from focusing too closely on his true feelings. The rest of the jab died in his throat as he looked her over, taking in again the drawn face and the delicate, bruised skin under her eyes. "Scarlett," he said instead, taking the first step up to the porch.

His movement disturbed her at last and she moved for the first time since rising to greet Bonnie, stepping quickly away from him. "Why are you here?" she asked, her voice smooth now, the emotion that had distorted it earlier apparently mastered.

"I had thought to ask you the same question," Rhett said lightly.

"You know I couldn't stay in Atlanta - like this—"

The reference to her obvious and yet still unaddressed pregnancy hung heavily between them, temporarily stifling the conversation. She rested one hand on the curve of her belly, her thin fingers trembling visibly. Rhett felt ill at ease. Bitter words crowded in his mouth, but the memory of a dream held him back. He did not wish to turn this stilted discussion into open warfare.

"I didn't know," he said, helpless.

"No," she said, sharply. "You didn't. I couldn't - why—" she fumbled. "Thank you for bringing Bonnie. Are you - will you - oh!" she cried, a sound of pure frustration. He watched her narrow shoulders rise and fall as she gathered herself figuratively and, taking her skirts in hand, literally. She moved toward him, coming close enough that he could just pick out a faint hint of lemon in the fall air.

"Why did you come?" she asked him plaintively.

"Bonnie missed you," he said, looking down into her turbulent green eyes.

"What will we do?" she hissed, and his heart flipped over wildly in the space of her breath, before she continued. "Sue will expect her to sleep in the nursery. She'll expect - you - oh, hush, damn you!" He had been unable to stifle a chuckle at his own insane moment of hope followed by her practical words. Of course, she was worried about the sleeping arrangements. "If you thought I would - if you think I would _ever,_ after six months, after what you did!"

Rhett stiffened and looked down at her belly. Ah, yes. After what he had done.

"What would you have me do?" he asked, suddenly tired.

He would have to stay. There was Bonnie's future to consider, even if there was nothing else. It was a stroke of luck that he had come home before the birth. The gossip could be checked, now, though it had undoubtedly reached a fever pitch with his absence and Scarlett's removal from town. And there was the new baby - his new baby. He remembered his dream, and his harsh words in April - _You wouldn't object to having his children, would you—and passing them off as mine?_ But he had no doubt that this child was his, and he marveled again that she had not followed Mamie Bart's despicable advice.

Scarlett laid out the terms of his residence at Tara in a terse, businesslike manner. He would make Bonnie sleep in the nursery. The unfortunate Lou had been sent to Tara after the night Bonnie's light had gone out and she was eager to redeem herself. She would stay with the children in the nursery, close at hand in case Bonnie woke in the middle of the night. No lamp would be left burning, but Bonnie could have the bed by the window, under the short curtains that allowed moonlight to slip beneath their hems. Rhett himself would have to stay in her room. There was nothing for it, according to his wife, who averted her eyes as she dictated this last. He must give her his word.

"As a gentleman, my pet?"

"Do you take me for a fool, Rhett? You must swear - you must swear on Bonnie's life that you will control yourself." Her face was no longer pale, but flushed to her hairline. Rhett wondered if she, too, was remembering her last pregnancy, and the resurgent honeymoon period which had characterized their relationship until the last months just before Bonnie's birth. He remembered. He remembered how slim she had been even as her belly swelled outward, the hair on his chest flattened against her smooth back and her hips cradled in his as they lay side-by-side, drowsing in the muggy afternoon heat. He had shocked her, but he had thought she had enjoyed their intimacy - until the blow had fallen, after their daughter was born.

He remembered April, and her harsh words when he had finally gathered up the courage to go home.

"I swear it."

"On Bonnie?"

"I swear on Bonnie's life, I will not touch you again, Mrs. Butler," he said, more harshly than he had intended. As usual when he felt he had revealed too much, though, Scarlett's belligerent self-centeredness blinded her and saved him. She seemed satisfied with his answer, though her eyes would raise no higher than his chest.

"Will and Suellen will want to meet you," she said, and stepped around him to enter the house.

* * *

 _Thank you all for the reviews and follows! Sorry for the (relatively long) delay in getting this update out. Weekend one of four traveling away from home is done, and yes, it did mess with my plans to update. I will definitely get at least one new post a week but possibly not more until the end of June, as there is a lot to do with the little time I am at home between now and then. Please bear with me, the ffnet notifications are a delight in my inbox!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Part II - Tara**

It was late. Bonnie had been successfully put to bed hours before, and at least so far, had been sleeping peacefully. She had been cuddled by her mother and Mammy, adored and petted by her newly acquainted cousins, and between this contentment and pure fatigue from the preceding days of travel she went to bed without a fuss. Rhett didn't expect that Lou's presence would be any help if Bonnie did wake up, but his choices had been reduced by the decision to come to Tara, and then entirely abrogated by Scarlett's condition. It was too late to do anything but acquiesce to her plan.

Rhett had sought a coward's refuge on the front porch, slumped in a chair with his half-empty flask propped against the flat plane of his stomach. The burning end of a cigar was bright against the night sky and the black silhouettes of the pine trees in the distance. No one had come to bother him since he had escaped outside after saying goodnight to Bonnie, and he was grateful for the reprieve. Supper had been entirely too much. Scarlett's sister Suellen treated him with exaggerated, sugar-coated respect that did little to disguise the sharp tongue which had dominated the conversation. Will Benteen was clearly a man of few words. And Scarlett—

He took a swig of the whisky and then dropped his head against the back of the chair, tipping it back on its hind legs. In six months, he had not let himself consider the possibility that she could be pregnant. For a woman who didn't want children, his wife was obscenely fertile. One damned night. Another baby. Rhett studied the boards in the porch ceiling, their white paint flaking off the old wood. There was a dark stripe where one board had gone missing. The house had gone quiet behind him, and still he sat. He was only delaying the inevitable. He would have to go in, to go to bed, that too-narrow bed he had seen earlier in the day.

Rhett stood, pocketing his flask as he crossed the porch. At the top of the steps he threw the butt of his cigar down onto the gravel of the curving driveway. Inside the house, Rhett paused a moment at the foot of the stairs. The hall upstairs was shadowed. Unlike their opulent home in Atlanta, the hall at Tara had no lights of its own. The uneven ranks of candles on the sideboard in the lower hall had been thinned since he had passed by on his way out of the house. He did not take one before climbing the stairs. He could see well enough to reach the top and find the correct door, shown him earlier by Pork when he had carried their luggage inside. He paused to strike a match before entering her bedroom.

Filmy curtains writhed sinuously in the gentle breeze coming through the open window, the slow movement making moonlight shimmer on the floor like water. He pinched out the flame. The simple bed was mounded with white covers. Her black hair was visible at the head, the long locks strewn on the pillow blending into the night.

Moving quietly, Rhett stripped down to his drawers and undershirt. The early fall air was cool at night, but with two in a bed that looked none too roomy, he did not expect to be chilled.

Not two in the bed - three. Or perhaps, he thought bitterly, now four.

The bed was not generous, leaving mere inches between his hip and her rounded stomach. It was a bed made for one - or for more intimate arrangements. Scarlett made no sound nor sign of acknowledgement as he laid down next to her and pulled the covers across his chest.

In the bright and airy bedroom at the top of the stairs Scarlett was packing. Mounds of silk and taffeta and cotton and satin, yards of lace and frills were disappearing into her valise.

"What are you doing?" Rhett asked inanely. Wasn't it obvious?

"Did you think I would stay - once you showed up?"

Yes, he had thought that, but he would not tell her. He would not let her know he had even briefly dared to hope they might both stop running.

"Where will you go?"

Scarlett's smile was sickly sweet. The air in the room felt cloying, the breeze no longer stirring.

"Why, I'm going to Twelve Oaks. Ashley's arranged everything."

"Will you come home?"

Scarlett laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and the endless sound rang in his ears until they throbbed painfully. Overwhelmed, he sat down on the empty bed and looked around. The curtains moved in a hot breeze that offered no relief. The dressing room door stood open, the hooks and shelves inside bare. He rolled over, his first night in a strange bed. His first night without her. _I don't want any more children. Three are enough._ Alone in the bed, he heard her whisper his name. He groaned, rolled over and pushed the pillow to his ears. She would taunt him; throw him out of their room - out of her bed - and yet never leave him alone. Never leave him in peace.

The voice didn't fade. It grew stronger. Awareness began to seep in, illuminating the contours of consciousness. More damn dreams. Her voice was not a dream. It grew louder, more strident. The mattress shifted beneath him.

Rhett opened his eyes to the pitch black of Scarlett's bedroom at Tara. Not daylight. Not Atlanta. The bed he had been crammed into with the wife he'd touched once in two years. Who was twisting under the light covers. She moaned incoherently; was his name part of the dreams? Rhett recognized the familiar signs of her nightmares. He rolled over, reached to pull her near, and then stopped. His arm hovered awkwardly over her body. He had promised only hours before. _I will not touch you again_.

"Scarlett," he said hoarsely, withdrawing his hand. "Scarlett," he said again, louder. If she heard him, she gave no sign. Reluctantly, he gripped her shoulder. "Scarlett," he repeated, and shook her gently.

When her eyes opened they gleamed briefly, vivid green in a flash of moonlight. She drew in a shuddering breath that tore at his heart, but Rhett released her shoulder.

"You were dreaming," he said, his own body tensing in advance of her rebuff.

"Rhett?"

"Yes. You were dreaming."

The mattress rolled, wave-like, as Scarlett turned to her side, facing him. Her small, pale hands were visible between them as she reached for him.

"Hold me," she whispered.

Instinct overrode his shock and he reached for her, pulling her close. The swell of her belly came to rest against him, keeping her body at bay. Awkwardly, he draped an arm about her shoulder and rubbed her back.

"Was it your old dream?" he asked quietly. Scarlett hiccoughed, and he heard the whisper against her pillow as she nodded.

Then a familiar, piercing cry split the night. "Daddy!"

Scarlett stiffened under his arm. _What a mess we are,_ he thought.

"Go on," Scarlett whispered, but he was sure he did not mistake the bitter edge to her voice.

"Wait here, Scarlett," Rhett said. He grimaced at the absurdity of the statement as he rolled out of the bed. Unsure where he might find a dressing gown, he simply shrugged back into his discarded shirt. The long, loose fabric would be modest enough in the middle of the night.

Bonnie was sitting up in her small bed, crying mightily and resisting all of Lou's attempts to soothe her. Ella, more used to this than the other girls, was still laying down, but Bonnie's cousins were sitting up in bed and rubbing their eyes. If Bonnie wasn't quieted or removed soon, there would be more screaming children to be dealt with.

"I'll take her," Rhett snapped at Lou. "Put the other girls back to bed."

Bonnie's fists tugged at his hair and her small face fit against his neck, hot and wet. She hiccoughed and continued to cry as he rubbed her back.

"There now darling. Daddy's here. Will you tell me all about it?"

Bonnie whimpered the details of her nightmare as he carefully navigated through the crowded nursery, down the hall, and back to the small bedroom where he had left Scarlett. He knocked, respectfully, and Scarlett's confused voice bade him enter. He kissed Bonnie's tangled curls and opened the door.

Scarlett had pushed herself to sit up on the bed and lit the candle which had probably graced the hall sideboard hours before. He gave her a sheepish grin, jouncing Bonnie gently. To his surprise, Scarlett laughed. It was a teary, weak sound, but he felt like he may have done something right for the first time in months.

"Mother had a bad dream, too," he said in an exaggerated whisper designed to reach Scarlett's ears, too. "Should we keep her company?"

Bonnie's sniffles stopped and she lifted her head from his neck. "Mother?" she questioned.

Rhett went back to the side of the bed he had left minutes before. Was it 'his' side of the bed now? Holding Bonnie firmly in one arm, he climbed back onto the mattress and settled next to Scarlett. After six months of separation and only one afternoon together, Mother was still a distracting novelty to Bonnie. She turned in Rhett's arms to reach for Scarlett, and very seriously unburdened herself of all the barely coherent details of her dream. He could tell Scarlett did not know what to make of this. He remembered their arguments over Bonnie's dreams, but bringing the two together on a night when Scarlett's own nightmares had woken her up seemed to have softened the mother to her daughter's troubled sleep. Would such gentleness last?

 _Truly, what a mess we are,_ Rhett thought again, reflecting as well on his own disturbed sleep. All three of them, unable to get through a night in peace.

Her demons vanquished, at least for now, Bonnie soon fell back to sleep. Scarlett yawned. And then somehow, despite absence and harsh promises, Scarlett's head was resting against his chest, his arm holding her close. Between them, Bonnie slumbered, her small mouth hanging open. Rhett looked down on the black heads and a treacherous warm feeling of domestic happiness caught him unawares. Both his girls—

Rhett looked down. And the new baby. Scarlett's belly swelled between them, with Bonnie curled around it. His baby. He lifted his head and saw that Scarlett's eyes were wide and alert, watching him. They weren't cold and angry, as they had been on the porch. In the soft candlelight, she looked almost pleading. Lost, and a little afraid, as she had the very first time she had awoken from a nightmare in his presence. His entire being strained with the urge to care for her, a resurgence of tender feelings he had tried and obviously failed to expunge over six months, over the last year.

Moving slowly, as if he stalked a wild animal, he brought his free hand around and pressed his palm to the side of her stomach. He heard her swift, indrawn breath, followed by silence.

"Is this all right?" Rhett asked, his eyes not leaving hers.

"Yes," she answered, in a rushing exhale.

They sat like that for several minutes. Her skin was warm under his hand, through the thin fabric of her nightgown. Her belly was firm and taut. He imagined he could feel the echo of her pulse beneath his palm, but that was it. The baby did not move. Rhett felt a certain desperation to ask her how she felt about this baby, remembering what she had said when she had learned she was pregnant with Bonnie. Remembering what she had said the day she had closed her bed to him, the words he had dreamed about just that night. She hadn't said anything - not even a tirade like she had had with Bonnie. What did she think about this pregnancy?

He wanted to ask, but he was not ready to risk her answer. If he stayed even a moment longer, he would ask.

Suddenly, Rhett withdrew his hand. He gathered Bonnie up and slid off the bed.

"I'll bring her back to her own bed," he said.

Bonnie did not stir as he brought her back to the nursery. When he returned to his wife's bedroom, Scarlett was asleep. He laid down next to her, his hip almost brushing her stomach, and waited for sleep to find him again.


	6. Chapter 6

A well-rested Bonnie was not interested in going to bed in the nursery with other little girls. For six months in Charleston, she had had her small bed in her father's room and been allowed to dictate her own bedtime. At Tara, neither would be allowed.

Tara had been an entertaining enough place to spend a day. There was so much to explore out of doors and in the barn, and hot chocolate for a treat when you came in from the chill. There was a huge old attic full of treasures and more than enough nooks and crannies to hide in. Wade and Ella had been there for many weeks, and Ella especially enjoyed the opportunity to hold something over her pampered baby sister. She delighted in showing Bonnie the house and did not hesitate to correct the younger girl if Ella thought she had done something wrong, with the result that by bedtime sharing a room with her now unendurably bossy older sister seemed the worst sort of torture the grown-ups could devise.

Bonnie was not pleased, and the whole house knew it, and possibly the entire property of the plantation, if anyone was out there in the night to hear. Rhett had sat with her on the little bed, trying to soothe his daughter but completely unable to make himself heard over her screaming. Eventually, after scathing looks cast by Suellen out of the corner of her eye in a failed attempt at subtlety, and an interesting variety of expressions had passed over Scarlett's face and been tucked into his mind to analyze later, Rhett removed Bonnie from the nursery where her sister and cousins were ready for bed, and brought her down into the deserted parlor on the first floor. Scarlett trailed behind them, radiating tension in every stiff line of her body, her face curiously downcast.

Bonnie would not be mollified by books or toys or an extra piece of dessert brought from the kitchen. She thrashed in her father's embrace, her round little face red and distorted by powerful emotion, until physical exhaustion at last overwhelmed her unhappy struggles. Rhett adjusted the burden of her sleep-heavy body, rearranging the limbs which had stilled at awkward angles, and smoothing the wet curls back from her tear-stained face. Her mouth lost its angry pucker and gaped open slightly. A tiny bubble of saliva burst in the corner of her lips. He held his daughter, willing to wait patiently until she seemed deep enough in sleep to be moved without further protest.

"She has to sleep in the nursery," Scarlett hissed, appearing suddenly at the arm of the worn sofa.

"She's not used to it—"

"She's spoiled! None of the other little girls mind. Ella doesn't even like Susie and she has never once complained about sharing the nursery with her."

Although Rhett had intended to agree with Scarlett that Bonnie would sleep in the nursery, that she just needed time and allowances while she became used to her new situation, Scarlett's words raised his hackles.

"Ella wouldn't complain to you, would she?" he scoffed, looking over his shoulder at his wife. "She's terrified of you."

Scarlett flushed and she opened her mouth, but closed it again without the hot retort Rhett had expected. The fine muscles in her jaw worked under her skin for a moment. Rhett saw her hand come to rest on the side of her stomach, surreptitiously, as if she didn't wish for him to notice the movement.

"You've been gone for six months," she whispered. "And you don't know my children nearly so well as you thought you did."

"I know you, my pet. Don't pretend to me, Scarlett, that you care one whit about whether or not Ella is happy with her sleeping arrangements."

Scarlett's bright feline eyes darkened briefly with an emotion he would, in another woman's face, have identified as hurt.

"Well she doesn't have a choice, and neither does Bonnie," Scarlett snapped, too loudly. Bonnie stirred against Rhett's chest.

"Hush," he hissed at his wife, and "Shh," he said gently against Bonnie's damp curls.

"You've spoiled her for six months," Scarlett said, her voice safely low again. "You will fix this, Rhett. It - it doesn't look right. She shouldn't scream so just because she is in the nursery. What...everyone will wonder why."

Rhett turned his neck sharply, but whatever expression had accompanied her words had already hardened. Absently, he stroked Bonnie's hair. "And you are hoping the gossip hasn't reached the County yet, is that it? I believe there is a rather appropriate expression to employ here. You have made your bed, Scarlett, and now you are lying in it."

"Just get Bonnie to lie in hers!" Scarlett fumed. She stormed out of the parlor, her skirts seething around her ankles before disappearing around the doorframe.

Rhett sat there for several more minutes, slowly rocking Bonnie side to side. When he was confident in her slumber, he gathered her safely to his chest to return her to the nursery. Bonnie was upset after the long days of travel to a strange new place with an unfamiliar bedroom, but Rhett did hope that she would settle into this new arrangement. At least while they remained at Tara, there was no other choice. The presence of three other little girls, all of them perfectly content to sleep in their own room, had also inspired a strange sort of guilt that Bonnie had roomed with him for so long. He had ignored Mammy's admonishments, Scarlett's tempers, and his own mother's disbelief at their arrangement.

Rhett thought back to the middle of the previous night, sitting up with Scarlett and the sleeping Bonnie after the nightmares which had woken them all. She had not seemed disgusted to be in his arms, or to have him touching her. The same wild hope he had ruthlessly expurgated back in April flared hot in his chest. Maybe there could be other reasons to reacquaint Bonnie with a nursery bed.

He laid Bonnie in that little bed tucked under the window. Lou, on her pallet by the footboard, stirred, but the other girls sleeping around the room seemed not to notice his presence. Back in his own room - _their_ room, Scarlett's stiff posture gave the lie to her own pretense of slumber.

"She is sound asleep," Rhett said into the darkness, setting a candle down on a low table. He waited a beat, but Scarlett did not stir. She seemed almost not to even breathe. Frustration broke over him with the battering force of a storm wave. He had conceded to necessity and given Scarlett her own way in everything since their arrival, conceded his own guilt in submittance to her demands, but he could only tolerate so much.

Rhett grabbed the blankets and yanked them down the bed, baring her body to mid-thigh. Scarlett shrieked and pushed herself upright, lunging awkwardly for the blankets. Rhett tugged again, pulling the top hem low enough for her own belly to thwart her reach.

"Do I have your attention now, my pet?" he drawled.

"Have you gone mad, Rhett? It's the middle of the night!"

"Then we shan't be disturbed. I think it's the perfect time to have another little talk. We have hardly had a moment for pleasant conversation since last night on the porch." She looked beautiful. Her black hair was caught in a thick braid, rumpled and uneven from the pillows. Her skin was luminous with the soft tones imbued by her pregnancy, and the angry flush in her cheeks which always so complimented her complexion seemed now to make her glow. Her eyes glittered in the uneven candlelight. Rhett's mouth was dry suddenly, remembering how he had last seen her, six months before.

"I have no interest in conversation with you," Scarlett spat, her mouth no less tempting for the bitter twist to her lips.

"Nevertheless, we will talk." Rhett lounged to a comfortably upholstered chair set under the window. With one hand on the rounded back, he lifted it easily and swung it nearer the bed before sitting down. He stretched his legs and slumped slightly in a calculatedly negligent posture.

"I don't want to hear any—"

"But you will hear." Rhett eased back in the chair. His shoulders had surged forward of their own accord and he willed himself to relax again. He wished he had a cigar, but he knew the case in his coat pocket was empty. "So tell me, Scarlett. What is your plan?"

"My - my plan?"

"Yes, your plan. Why do you care if Bonnie learns to sleep in the nursery? I did not think the opinions of your dear sister meant much of anything to your hard head. Surely we could set a little cot for Bonnie in here; after all, you have already secured my promise. I doubt you mean for any part of these arrangements to continue once we return to Atlanta, so why cling so fiercely to them now?"

Did she wince, or was that merely a trick of the wavering light?

"It wouldn't look right for Bonnie to sleep in here."

"After her display tonight, we could simply claim she is having difficulty adjusting to a new room, and would be more comfortable near her parents for the time being. That is, if you still wish to imagine that your sister does not know the same story as all of Atlanta."

"That is your f—"

"Ah," Rhett said, stroking his chin as if struck suddenly by a new thought. "Is that the plan? You need a new story." He looked pointedly at her belly.

"You are hateful." Scarlett crossed her arms over her stomach as if protecting her belly, and the baby, from his eyes.

"And you, my dear, are pregnant. A neat trick, that, when the entire town - and yes, Scarlett, I'm sure the County, too - knows that I've been sleeping alone for months if not years, and that you have recently been surprised in the arms of your lover."

"I never—"

Rhett waved his hand. "Never mind that. But it's given you quite a problem now, hasn't it? I wonder what you would have done had I stayed in Charleston." Rhett paused, but now Scarlett did not seem inclined to interject. She was staring down at her arms where they crossed, looking almost frail against her healthy stomach. "Would you have written to me at the eleventh hour to call me home?" He kept his voice light, but failed to spare the same iron control for the hand which curled into a fist on the arm of the chair.

"I'm very tired, Rhett," Scarlett said quietly without looking up.

He remembered how she had tired easily during her pregnancy with Bonnie. In contrast to their current estrangement, they had still been able to achieve some intimacy during that time. Or so he had thought, although in light of her decision after Bonnie's birth, that feeling must have been on his part alone. His knuckles ached with the impotent straining of his hand. His control was waning; he would get no clear answers from her like this.

"I beg your pardon," Rhett muttered. "Forgive my poor manners, my dear." He rose from his chair and crossed to the table by the door with long, easy strides. He pinched out the candle he had set there and the room darkened considerably, though not completely. A heavy moon hung in the window, casting its light through the curtains. He returned the chair he had been using to its place beneath the window, then sat back down and rested his head wearily on the rounded wooden trim of the back.

Rhett heard the rustling of bedding and a low creak from the bed frame, indications that Scarlett had retrieved the covers and lain back down. He closed his eyes. He could not spend all night in a damn chair, but at the moment it seemed a far better choice than crawling into that bed next to her.

The base of his skull felt bruised from the weight of a hangover the likes of which he had not had in two decades, at least. The pain was obliterating, wiping out most conscious thought and recent memory. But not enough. It came to him in flashes, playing out like theater against the black backdrop of his closed eyelids. Archie's face twisted in malevolent glee. Scarlett under her covers, looking frail and diminished by her cowardice and guilt. The bite of her corset strings in his hands and the desire to wrap those thin cords around _both_ their necks, his own as well as hers. How fragile her skull felt between his huge palms, the bristle of her wild hair, the scent of her, still doused in perfume, choking him. Her fear, her struggles, her acquiescence, her absolution. Burying his own guilt in her body, driven by anger to play the only card he had left to hold.

His eyelids felt too heavy to open, but he did not need to see. He could feel her. He was sprawled on his back, his right arm numbed from lying at an odd angle across the pillows, his fingertips dangling off the head of the bed. His left arm was crooked at the elbow, his forearm swinging free alongside the mattress. A mad tangle of bedding and clothing twisted around his chest and hips and one leg, his left leg was bent up at the knee and escaped the confinement of fabric. There was warmth all along his right side. The hard convex of her kneecap pressed just below his hip, the ridges of her fisted fingers fit in between the dips of his ribs, her hair tickled the tender underside of his upper arm, and her breath played in hot strokes over his chest. She was curled inward, pressed to his side. Not holding him, nor he her, but curled against him like a child.

It was suddenly, everything, all of it, too much. He would choke on the bile of guilt and rage, be driven mad by the swirling temptation of hope and love. What would happen when she awoke? How could he possibly face her? Memory played its hand with cruel indifference, reminding him of things he had said in whispers against her skin. Had she heard him? He would leave. He must leave.

Rhett tried to roll away and lever himself out of her bed, only to find himself on the floor with a throbbing pain at the back of his skull keeping counter time to the pain at his neck. He opened his eyes to silvery moonlight. He was lying on the floor of the bedroom at Tara, the chair where he had sat on its own back beneath him. His skull hurt from the pressure of the chair back and the collision with the hard floor after he had, apparently, overturned his seat while acting on the movements of his dream.

"Rhett?" Scarlett murmured.

A dream. Not a nightmare, this time, but a true recollection of that April night.

"Rhett," she said again, the sleepy mumbling accompanied by a chorus of whispering sheets. Rhett squeezed his eyes shut and dug in his thumbs. With an undignified series of movements, he rolled around and climbed free of the capsized chair. He was still fully clothed, not having intended to sleep when he had sat in that chair however long ago.

"Hush," he whispered, unlooping his cravat and watching Scarlett stir under the covers. She did not appear to be entirely awake. Probably the noise of his graceless tumble had broken her dreams, but not cast her out of sleep. He had certainly disturbed her peace. She continued to move under the quilt and Rhett marveled that her own efforts to heave herself from side to side did not wake her completely.

Rhett shed his clothes quickly, stripping down to his underthings before climbing into the bed. The soft mattress dipped dramatically under his weight, evening out somewhat as he settled his full length. Scarlett turned toward him as a simple matter of rolling downhill, as the mattress dropped under his body, with a narrow slope of white sheets between them. Then her eyes opened, clear and bright in the diffuse moonlight falling over the bed and momentarily belying his supposition of involuntary movement.

"Rhett," she said for the third time, and slung her tender arm around his neck for leverage as she drew her face to his chest. He saw her eyes close again before he lost sight of her face. _She must be asleep_ , he thought. For a moment, he did not even dare to breathe, fearful of disturbing her. He held his breath until his lungs burned and he was forced to draw in fresh, cool air, his chest rising and falling under the weight of her dark head.

Scarlett's belly pressed along his arm as he lay rigidly beside her. She squirmed, and his arm slid beneath the protrusion, her belly coming to rest against his waist. He felt a small foot wedge under his calf, and even through the thin fabric of his drawers he could feel that the foot was surprisingly cold for having been under the covers for hours. _In for a pound_ , he shrugged, and slid his arm fully beneath her, drawing it up to rest more comfortably in the space above her shoulders. He bent his elbow so he could press his palm to the dip of her lower back, drawing her tightly against him. Her stomach fit along his side, firm and hot through the thin layers of fabric between them. Rhett stared up at the shadowed ceiling, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, letting his own slow to match. He arched his wrist, straining his hand from her back to touch the beginning of her curving belly.

What must she think of this baby, her pregnancy, his actions which had led her - led him - to this? He did not need nightmares to remind him.

 _You know I don't want any more children! I never wanted any at all. I won't have it, I tell you, I won't!_

 _I've decided that I don't want any more children. You know what I mean?_

Another baby. The joy, anger, disappointment, heartbreak, and hope were almost too much to be contained behind his usual indifferent mask. He could not be sure enough of his own self-possession to question her outright, but his attempt to anger her into some sort of confession had been unproductive. After the hesitant intimacy of the night before, it had also been frustrating and unsatisfying.

Rhett relaxed the awkward pose of his wrist and let his arm extend across her deserted half of the narrow bed. Matching Scarlett breath for breath, he fell back to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

"Another day and I reckon we'll have that fence finished," Will Benteen observed, pushing the brim of his straw hat back so that it wouldn't catch the smoke from his cigar and direct it back to his pale eyes. "You've been a good man to have around, Rhett, and I hope you don't mind me saying that's a bit of a surprise."

Rhett lit his own cigar and rolled his shoulders as he brought it up to his lips. "I don't mind at all, Will. I'm surprised myself. I never really was a farmer, and it's been a long time since I had to work with my hands."

"Your folks had a plantation, didn't they?"

"Yes, but they lost it after the war. Even then, I hadn't been there for years."

"Same might've happened to Tara, if it wasn't for Scarlett."

Rhett grimaced and drew on his cigar. "You've had quite a hand in it too, Will."

Will nodded with matter-of-fact acknowledgement. "Least I could do."

Reflecting on some of his own actions, Rhett thought privately that in truth Will could have done far less. He might have voiced a similar sentiment, but Ella and Bonnie galloped out onto the porch. Ella held her baby sister's hand tightly, and they were both out of breath.

"Daddy!" Bonnie cried, tugging her hand free and toddling across the rough white planking, her arms uplifted. Smiling indulgently, Rhett scooped her up onto his knee.

"Hello my darling," Rhett said, planting kisses across Bonnie's cheeks with exaggerated smacking noises that made her giggle and shove at his face. He laughed and straightened up, looking at Ella over Bonnie's black curls. "What have you girls been doing?"

"Mother says it's time for supper," relayed Ella seriously.

"I believe our presence is requested at the table, Will," said Rhett. Ella's head tilted to one side. She used that gesture of puppy dog confusion so frequently, Rhett often teased her that her head might get stuck like that. The men stamped out their cigars in the flat dish set on the table between their chairs. Will rose, and Rhett tried to set Bonnie down to do the same.

"No!" Bonnie protested, refusing to let go of the handfuls of sleeve she had caught in her pudgy fists.

"Bonnie doesn't want to walk," Ella offered. "She only wants to run."

Rhett quirked one dark eyebrow. "Is that why you came out here in such a hurry?" Ella nodded. Rhett stood and held Bonnie up so they were eye-to-eye. "Should we all have a race to the supper table?"

"Yes!"

"But, Uncle Rhett, Mother won't like it…"

Will clapped a hand on Rhett's shoulder. "I'll see you in a minute, then," he said, then winked at the little girl and left the trio alone on the porch.

"Set Go!" cried Bonnie, now squirming eagerly to be set down on her own sturdy legs.

"Are you ready to race, Ella?" Rhett asked, keeping a firm hold on Bonnie.

"But Mother…"

"It will be all my fault."

"Uhmm…"

Rhett let go of Bonnie and the toddler immediately took off down the narrow porch. "You had better hurry if you don't want your baby sister to beat you," Rhett said lightly. Ella hesitated a moment longer, shifting her weight nervously as she clearly debated the risks of her mother's anger or losing to the baby. Then she turned on her heel and ran after Bonnie, catching up to her in time to pull open the front door, whose knob Bonnie could barely reach, for them both.

Rhett removed his flask from the pocket inside his coat and took a swift drink before following the girls.

He entered the dining room only a few seconds behind them, interrupting Scarlett's tirade almost before it had begun.

"Ella Lorena Kennedy, you know better than to come run—"

"Who won?" Rhett asked loudly, picking up Bonnie who had come running to his knees. Her lower lip protruded as Ella proudly proclaimed her victory. Rhett tapped Bonnie's mouth lightly and whispered in her ear, "Your daddy came in last." Bonnie appeared to ponder his words then clapped her hands delightedly.

"Daddy lost!" she crowed.

Rhett took his seat across from Scarlett and settled Bonnie on the chair pulled up next to his. Ella had seated herself next to her mother, and was casting nervous sideways glances in that direction. Bright color bloomed in soft spots high on the apples of Scarlett's cheeks and her jaw worked visibly under her skin as she stared at Rhett. Will was already in his seat at the head of the table, with Wade at his right. Suellen, almost as pregnant as Scarlett, came in last, herding her daughters before her. With the arrival of her sister, Scarlett swallowed visibly and abandoned the attempt to find a suitable reprimand. Rhett winked at her and she scowled back at him.

After Will led grace, a custom much neglected in the Butler household, the supper dishes were circulated until every plate was piled high with food. Rhett watched Scarlett glance around, her gaze lingering on Wade's plate. Then she shook herself and began to eat.

Rhett had served Bonnie with only a small taste of food, as almost anything on her plate would be ignored. She greatly preferred to take her meals from her father's plate. He carefully cut small bits of ham to place within her reach. Her hand stretched out for the food and Rhett caught it gently.

He had allowed Bonnie her own head in nearly everything while they had been in Charleston, despite his mother's disapproval. But at Tara, after the nursery dispute had come the dinner table. Bonnie not only ate from her father's plate instead of her own, she most often did so with her fingers. Rhett knew Scarlett had been mortified at this discovery. In their own house in Atlanta, it would have been good for an invigorating argument. In too close proximity to her family at Tara, a quieter but no less vociferous discussion had taken place in the middle of the night, lying in their bed with her back to him and her face stubbornly refusing to turn away from the far wall.

Rhett cupped Bonnie's hand gently in his own and reached for the small baby fork. Bonnie tugged and refused to open her fingers. Speaking gently and quietly, Rhett talked to her about the pleasures of being a big girl, and how said state of being hinged on many things including the use of flatware, and gradually cajoled Bonnie into accepting the fork. She was not very adept with the tiny silver utensil, so that although eating this way kept her hands clean, a good deal more of her meals ended up on her dress.

Her dress was the third point of contention in the family. Rhett had purchased all new clothes for her in Charleston, and allowed Bonnie to pick her own fabrics. Now, she had no durable broadcloth or calico which could hide somewhat the stains of grass and dirt picked up by farm children. Bonnie wore blue taffeta with white lace collars and refused, loudly, any attempt by Mammy or Scarlett to dress her in hand-me-downs from Suellen's girls (as all Bonnie's old dresses were still in Atlanta, and would now be too small for her in any case). Even Mammy had let Rhett know plainly that it just weren't fittin' for a little girl to be dressed so.

Rhett had not done anything about the dresses. He could afford to buy his baby as many new dresses as she needed or desired, so he saw no reason to care if she was ruining fine fabrics. And, on top of her table manners and the ongoing struggles over bedtime, letting Bonnie have her pretty blue frocks seemed unimportant.

A clump of potato spilled from Bonnie's fork onto his knee and he flicked it to the floor carelessly. Bonnie was eating steadily if clumsily, and Rhett turned his attention to the adult conversation.

"Did you get the fence done?" Suellen was asking her husband. When she spoke, Suellen's voice always had an undertone of whining, as if she were not satisfied by your answer before you even gave it. It seemed, most of the time, as if nothing and no one in existence was satisfactory to Scarlett's brittle younger sister. Including her own husband; perhaps it was a family trait, Rhett had mused bitterly.

"Nearly," Will replied.

The ever-present frown line which vertically creased Suellen's brow deepened, puckering the fair skin between her eyes.

"Will it be done soon? I had hoped you would look at the window in the parlor before it gets much colder."

Will smiled, well-accustomed to his wife's accusatory manner and not in the least put off by it. "I'll take a look first thing in the morning. You don't mind getting started without me, do you, Rhett?"

"Not at all."

Suellen snorted. "If he's as handy as Ashley Wilkes was, you had better finish the fence first. The window can wait."

Rhett looked from head to foot of the table, keeping his face carefully bland as his gaze passed over Scarlett. He waited for the hot retort which must surely follow her sister's words, remembering her anger at his own taunting after her marriage to Frank.

"Rhett can manage the fence," said Will in his placid manner. Rhett raised his eyebrows at his wife, but she remained stubbornly silent. Perhaps only _he_ was not allowed to criticize the vaunted and adored Ashley.

"I'm happy to help, Will, Mrs. Benteen," Rhett said smoothly, his gaze not leaving Scarlett. He thought her nose twitched, but she gave no other sign of interest in the conversation.

Bonnie was growing frustrated at being ignored by her favorite table companion, and made her disapproval known by smacking the back of Rhett's hand with her small fork. It had the desired effect, as he turned his attention back to his tiny tyrant daughter.

It was much later, when the Butlers were alone in their small room after the children had been put to bed, that Scarlett finally gave vent to the displeasure Rhett had been waiting to hear voiced at supper. Rhett had intended to replenish his cigar case before joining Will on the porch again for a few minutes, giving his wife enough time to change for bed before he intruded. His back was to the door as he carefully laid cigars in the heavy gold case when the snapping rustle of her heavy skirts announced her presence. That, and the sound of the door being closed firmly. She wouldn't slam it, but over the last week she had perfected the art of shutting their bedroom door with just the right amount of force to indicate exactly how she _wished_ to close it.

Rhett ignored her and added another cigar to the half-full case.

"What a fine field hand you make," he heard her scoff. "Aren't you worried all this hard work might make you ill when you are quite unaccustomed to it?"

Rhett straightened lazily and closed his cigar case. It was not full, but he began to doubt he would be joining Will again that night. "I know a thing or two about hard work, my pet. Don't forget, I also grew up on a plantation."

"Not as a field hand! You never worked in your life. That desk at the bank—"

"That desk at the bank is ensuring our daughter's future," Rhett snapped, his patience fraying. Would she never be able to understand?

Scarlett's slim shoulders stiffened. "You're a fine one to talk. Didn't you tell me once that with enough money, you don't need to worry about a reputation? And if you - if you cared so much…"

Her voice trailed off weakly, and she turned her head away.

"Yes, my dear? Pray continue. Your own reputation is so spotless, I eagerly await some pearl of wisdom which may guide Bonnie's future in your shining example."

"You're a cad!" Scarlett cried.

"Your limited repertoire of insults is growing quite tiresome. Do try a little harder, my dear."

"Oh!" She stamped her foot. In a thin slipper, the action did not have much force and made very little sound against the soft rag rug. It was comically petulant, with her obvious pregnancy an adult state quite at odds with the childish gesture. Rhett chuckled. Her eyes narrowed, the pale green growing dark with anger.

"If you cared so much then you wouldn't have spent two days brawling at Belle Watling's!"

Rhett tensed, every muscle in his body drawing up. Even his throat tightened, stifling the nascent laughter at Scarlett's ridiculous action. Scarlett's face was stark white, almost glowingly pale in the lamp light. Rhett stalked across the narrow distance between them. Scarlett swallowed audibly as he moved behind her, but she did not turn to follow him. Rhett brought one hand to her neck caressingly, running his fingers up and down the column of her throat.

"I would like to wring your neck for that, my darling." Rhett felt the movement of another swallow as he slid his fingertips slowly up to her chin. A shudder began in his shoulders and he pulled his hand away so she wouldn't feel the tremble in his fingers. He could never tell her why he had left that night. To confess his fear to her would be worse than confessing his love; like an already wounded animal turning its eviscerated belly up to the predator who had delivered the blow. He retreated to the far side of the room and began to unknot his cravat.

"What are you doing?" Scarlett asked, her voice strained.

"I'm retiring for the night."

"But - but I'm not ready. I haven't changed—"

Rhett dropped the cravat and raked his eyes up her rounded form. He began to unbutton his coat. "Should I call Prissy for you?"

"But you—"

"I am going to bed. I am not leaving my own room simply because your sensibilities have become too delicate to bear being seen by your own husband. I assure you, my dear, you possess nothing that interests me." He tossed his coat carelessly on a chair and began with the cuffs of his shirt. He carefully avoided looking in the direction of his wife, and by the time he had discarded his shirt he heard the rustle of her skirts, the creak of the door, and her voice softly calling for Prissy. Rhett finished disrobing hurriedly and, after retrieving the cigar case he had set aside, climbed into the high bed.

Rhett lit a cigar and sat back on the pillows. Prissy arrived in the bedroom shortly thereafter. Scarlett glanced his direction several times but made no further complaint about his presence. Except for the angry tension still knotting up his shoulders, it could almost have been a scene from the first year of their marriage as he watched Prissy help Scarlett out of her plain green dress. While the maid hung the pieces carefully on a hook, Scarlett shrugged out of her corset cover and turned her back for Prissy to undo the laces of her stays.

"That will be all," Scarlett snapped.

"Yas'm," mumbled Prissy, and closed the door softly behind herself.

Rhett drew on the cigar and stared at her frankly. Scarlett was still clutching the loosened stays to her chest. She glared at him and picked up her nightdress with one hand, then retreated to the far corner of the room. She struggled to keep her corset up with one hand while she ran the fabric of the dress through her other hand until she found the hem, then pulled it over her head. When the hem had floated down to her waist, she dropped the corset and pulled the fabric down until the nightdress was entirely on, except she kept her arms inside it. The fabric rippled and heaved as her arms moved underneath and when she stepped away, a small white heap by the corset indicated her chemise and drawers had been slipped off. She thrust her arms into the sleeves at last and, ignoring the discarded garments, came to the side of the bed.

Rhett smiled. "That was quite the show." Scarlett did not respond to the bait, and he felt reluctantly impressed by her uncharacteristic restraint. Silently, she extinguished the lamp so that the only light in the room came from silver moonlight and the round red glow of his burning cigar. The mattress rolled as she climbed into the bed, keeping her back to him. He smoked the cigar until it was a withered butt, then stubbed it out, releasing a strong whiff of tobacco. He closed his eyes, listening to Scarlett's shallow breathing until they both passed out of waking.

* * *

 _Thank you everyone who has left reviews or followed this story! I know the chapters are not very long so I'm sorry an update has been so delayed. I think I can get back to two a week now that my crazy month of travel is over._


	8. Chapter 8

"Rhett, hurry!"

Scarlett's voice was almost musical, so light and teasing as she called to him from somewhere up the road. Where was he? It looked a little bit like the path to Tara, wagon-rutted and thickly bordered with pine trees. Scarlett called his name again.

"Rhett! We are waiting!"

Where was she? The road curved ahead, so sharply it almost appeared to end in a wall of trees. She must be around that bend. Sticking his hands in his pockets, Rhett started walking in long, leisurely, ground-eating strides. The air smelled faintly citrus, as if there were lemon trees hiding behind the thick needled pines. With a slight chill in the air and a brightly blue sky overhead and Scarlett calling to him again, just out of sight, he felt absolutely invigorated.

"Daddy, now!" Rhett stopped in mid-stride. That high, clear voice did not sound like Bonnie, and for a moment he was confused. Just a moment, for of course - how could he ever forget the baby? Another voice, and this one instantly recognizable as Bonnie's, echoed the call of "Daddy."

Rhett quickened his steps, eager to join his family. The road before him seemed to stretch for miles, the bend in the road never drawing nearer. He could hear laughter, pure childish chortles and Scarlett's teasing giggle. And still the road refused to turn, the trees that towered over him refused to reveal their secret. He moved ever faster until his feet were flying down the dirt road, nimbly avoiding the deep ruts, leaping over them with an agility and a desperation he hadn't possessed since his stint in the doomed Confederate army. Rhett was consumed by a sudden fear, irrational though he knew it to be, that they were leaving without him. Was the sound of their voices growing fainter? Would this damn road never end? He should call to her, let her know he was nearly there. He was doing his best - he would be with them as soon as he could.

"Scarlett," he called out, but the words emerged as a mere whisper. His throat was parched and arid, there was nothing in him to sustain his voice. "Scarlett," he said again, croaking the words over dry and cracking lips.

"Daddy!" he heard again, two childish voices echoing as the sound of Scarlett's carefree laughter wove in and out.

Would she leave? Would she take their children and disappear? Even as desperation roared over him like a wave, he knew it to be no more than he deserved - no more than he himself had already done to her. Not even just once, but twice, going back to that first time when he took Wade to New Orleans. Scarlett would not do such a thing. Scarlett would do anything.

"Scarlett!" he tried again, nearly sobbing in frustration when his voice still refused to rise above a desiccated whisper. What would he do with himself, without her?

"Daddy!" Bonnie cried without accompaniment.

"Rhett," Scarlett answered him at last, but her voice was muffled and distant.

"Daddy!"

"Rhett, damn you! Bonnie is going to wake the whole house!"

He came awake, jerking upright. Scarlett was shaking his shoulder. Bonnie was screaming down the hall.

He hesitated, his muddled mind torn between the instinctive response to his daughter's need, and an equally strong impulse from his subconscious to reassure himself of Scarlett's presence. Then Scarlett dug her nails into his shoulder, and the pain cleared the last fug of sleep.

"Rhett! What is wrong with you?"

Coming fully awake, Rhett didn't bother to answer. He grabbed his dressing gown, now unpacked and hanging on a hook right next to the bed. He was still knotting the belt about his waist, the brocade tails flapping in an undignified manner about his calves, as he hurried out to the nursery.

Lou was trying to contain the struggling Bonnie on her lap, and in danger of being overpowered by the toddler's vigor. Rhett could see that Ella's eyes were open, but she lay still, resigned to the disturbance, gently patting the hair of the doll in her arms. The Benteen girls were awake and sitting up in bed, and the eldest - Susie, the very image of her mother - was complaining loudly about the interruption and trying to order Lou to shut the baby up.

"Daddy!" Bonnie wailed again when she saw him, and she twisted mightily in Lou's arms to reach for her father.

"Fo' Gawd, Mist' Rhett," Lou began to beg with familiar desperation, her eyes rolling in panic. Rhett lifted Bonnie from her arms.

"See to the girls," he snapped, more embarrassed by his own delay in responding to Bonnie's panic than angry at Lou for her inability to calm the child, but nonetheless uninterested in reassuring the woman. This business of keeping Lou in the nursery was pointless; Rhett knew no one but he could calm Bonnie, but Scarlett had insisted and the way things stood currently, he could not gainsay her.

Bonnie's hot, clammy hands were kneading his neck as she sobbed into his shoulder. His heart squeezed painfully as he rubbed her little back, bitterly angry with himself for being rendered ineffectual by his own bad dreams.

"Hush, darling," he murmured, carrying Bonnie from the nursery. He hesitated at the top of the stairs, then went down. With the small skirmishes over Bonnie's behavior added to their existing estrangement, the unexpected intimacy of that first night seemed very far away. Rhett sat with Bonnie snugly in his lap on the worn sofa in the front parlor. Bonnie's great-grandmother sneered down her elegant nose at them from her vantage point above the heavy mantel. Rocking Bonnie slowly back to sleep, Rhett examined that shadowed portrait looming over them. The mysterious Grandma Robillard, idolized by her granddaughter even as she struggled vainly to live up to the image of her mother.

The slanting dark eyes were Scarlett's own, the night erasing the difference between black and green and showing him only that intriguing, seductive shape that was so unique. The eyes of the grandmother offered him no secrets. Besides the shape of her eyes and her thick, black hair, there was very little of the granddaughter in the features of her ancestor. But the scar of the bayonet thrust running across the half-exposed bosom, splitting the creamy skin, gave the portrait an eerie kinship to Scarlett. In the middle of the night, as he rocked their daughter alone and lulled himself into a meditative mood, he began to see Scarlett more and more in this war-damaged image. The portrait bore its scars openly, the flesh-and-blood woman did not.

Bonnie was cradled in his arms, her cheek resting on his forearm. With his free hand he wiped her face gently, brushing away tiny teardrops that had not yet dried. She turned her head away from his fingers, her rosebud lips parting in a yawn, but did not seem to wake. After a few more minutes, satisfied that she was sound asleep, he held her securely against his chest to carry her back to the nursery.

To Rhett's surprise, when he opened the bedroom door nearly an hour after leaving Scarlett, she was sitting up against the headboard. She had lit a candle and it was barely more than a nub of wax but, for now, still burning brightly. He closed the door softly, watching Scarlett chafe her bare arms as if she had caught a chill.

"Why are you still awake?" Rhett said, circling round to his side of the bed. He untied his dressing gown, slipped out of it and hung it next to their bed. "Waiting up for me?" he asked lightly.

Her glare was as predictable as the steps in a well-rehearsed dance. "Did you have another nightmare?" he questioned, more gently.

Scarlett shrugged off his inquiry. "I just - couldn't get back to sleep."

"Is something troubling you?" Rhett slipped under the covers, leaned back against the headboard and tucked the sheet around his waist. Forced together by the narrow bed, her shoulder was close enough to brush his bicep.

"No - oh - I don't know, Rhett. It's nothing." Scarlett's slim fingers plucked at the coverlet. He caught her fidgeting hand in his and held it lightly.

"Tell me."

With a sidelong glance, Scarlett tugged her hand free. "Bonnie…"

Rhett tensed. After so recently demonstrating that she was still plagued by her own nightmares, she wouldn't dare renew her criticism over his handling of Bonnie's bad dreams - would she?

"Go on," he said quietly.

"She's wild, Rhett. She won't listen to anyone, not even Mammy. She bit Susie today - the little beast deserved it, I'm sure, she's just like Suellen come again - but Rhett, I can't let her get away with something like that, not with Suellen breathing down my neck just waiting to tell me what a horrible mother I am. Oh!" Scarlett exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands and flushing, looking very much like someone who has said something she never intended to let slip. He puzzled over this for a moment before it came to him. _A cat's a better mother than you!_ She was afraid he would take Suellen's side.

Rhett laughed. "Well if she deserved it, what's the harm? Why do you care what your sister thinks?"

Scarlett lowered her hands to her lap again, twisting her fingers around each other. "Don't joke, Rhett! Do you want her to bite one of Mrs. Merriwether's granddaughters at a party?"

"Come, Scarlett, she's still just a baby. Don't tell me you never bit Suellen yourself."

Scarlett flushed, but her eyes were hard. "You could make her behave better, Rhett, if you would only try."

"I won't bully her like you do Wade and Ella."

"Get out!" Scarlett shrieked in sudden rage, her voice far too loud in the midnight hush. "I won't listen to you anymore. I don't want you here. I don't want to see you, I want you to leave Tara, I don't care, I just don't—"

She had clenched her fists at the start of this tirade, then without warning she turned on him, her right hand raised with clawed fingers aimed directly at his eyes. He lurched backward, putting enough distance between them so that he could catch her wrist before her hand made contact. Immediately, she raised her left hand, digging her nails into him as she tried to pry loose his grip. Rhett caught this hand, too. He held both her wrists, squeezing them until she stopped trying to tug her hands free. He was probably bruising her; for the moment, he didn't care.

"I always knew you had claws like a cat," he panted, relaxing his grip somewhat as her struggles subsided.

"Go to hell," she muttered.

They sat together in the bed, their chests heaving with their exertions. He lowered their arms, and felt the rise and fall of her belly inside the cage of his forearms. Scarlett stared straight ahead, her wrists limp in his hands, her cheeks blotchy with angry color. She sat for all the world as if he wasn't there, as if she hadn't just tried to claw his eyes out, as if nothing untoward had just happened at all. Her pregnant stomach brushed his arms with every breath.

Rhett exhaled shakily. He looked down at her body, soft and curving under her loose white nightclothes. Her breasts were larger than he remembered, and the lace decorating her bosom was strained tightly across their full tops. The generous cut of the nightgown draped her belly and pooled around her hips. She was lush with life, with his child.

Rhett closed his eyes, took a steady breath, and then opened them again. "What do you want me to do," he said in a low, even voice.

Scarlett shivered, but she didn't look at him - not yet. "You must make her mind, Rhett. She can't always have her way."

"All right," he said, opening his hands until her wrists rested across his palms. He smoothed his thumbs along her forearms. She turned her head, lifting wide green eyes to his.

"What?" she asked in a breathless whisper.

"All right. Bonnie can't always have her way. When she comes to me because you or Mammy told her 'no,' I won't gainsay it. I... I'm afraid she did not hear that word at all in Charleston."

Scarlett sniffed. "Yes, well, it shows."

Rhett smiled gently and slipped his right hand out from under her arms. He brushed his thumb from the ridge of her cheekbone down to the dimple that formed when she smiled back at him, her lips trembling hesitantly.

"It's late. You must be tired."

"Y-yes, I am, tired."

Rhett lifted the arm that still rested in his left hand and, turning her wrist up, pressed a kiss to her palm. Her fingers twitched against his cheek. He held her there, and the smell of lemon verbena on her pulse enveloped his senses for a brief moment.

"What are you doing? Rhett," Scarlett whispered.

"Hush." Rhett cupped her hand in his and stroked his thumb across her palm, pulling her arm forward so he could kiss her wrist. He could feel the flutter of her pulse under his lips.

"Stop that," Scarlett said, but her voice was soft and she did not pull her hand away.

"Stop what?" he asked without removing his mouth, letting his lips and mustache tickle her skin.

"Just - stop." She moved her arm, making a weak effort to slip her wrist from his hands. The feel of her smooth skin in his palms had an intoxicating effect, stronger than any whisky. Once he had touched her, he couldn't force himself to stop. It had simply been too long, and he was dying of thirst in the drought.

Rhett pressed his lips to the heel of her palm, slightly open-mouthed, briefly tasting the gentle valley there with his tongue. He watched her eyelashes flutter as she dropped her gaze. Her lips parted in a sign he recognized, still. She expected to be kissed. Rhett took his right hand from her cheek and moved to reach for her.

He stopped when his hand brushed her belly. He heard Scarlett's sharp intake of breath. Her eyes opened, her lashes fluttering coquettishly but her expression was utterly without artifice. The curve of her belly under his palm had an accusatory effect. _Feel what you did._ Scarlett's wide eyes showed fear even in the dim moonlight that crept in through the window. Useless to wonder what she might fear; the penalty for his unwanted attentions was hot under his hand, another baby when she didn't even want the ones she had. He would not apologize; hell no. He wanted this child, even if she did not. But it would be better and safer for them both if he would accept his cage meekly, retreat to the limits she had imposed the day he had arrived at Tara and keep her body and his heart safe.

"Get some sleep," he said abruptly, his voice hoarse. Rhett released her and removed his hand from her belly. He laid down and turned his back to her, and after a minute, he felt the shifting of the mattress and the tugging on the covers that signaled her own retreat.

If he had been alone, he might have groaned in frustration. To reestablish the boundaries between himself and his wife, he suffered in silence, forcing his breathing to slow and willing his heart to stop racing. Scarlett had made her preferences known the day he had arrived at Tara. Whatever fey mood had possessed her to suffer his touch on these few occasions since then, he would not take advantage of her when he knew it could be no more than an illusion of tenderness and caring. Perhaps some sort of spell cast by the idyllic Tara, but they would not be staying in this isolated world forever. Eventually, they would go back to Atlanta. Once the baby was born and she no longer had to wear the shame of being touched by her own husband like a scarlet letter, she would want to return to Atlanta and her darling Ashley, whose adulterous embrace did not seem to trouble her nearly as much as his own attentions sanctioned by God and man. If they had been in Atlanta, he would have left her by now to take his comfort with Belle. It would have soothed his rage and hurt and tempered his desire, to be wanted by someone, someone who welcomed his embrace, someone whose bed he did not have to share either. Belle had long since stopped taking any customers herself. He was using her, very much the way Ashley used Scarlett, though his foolish wife did not realize it. Belle knew it, and accepted him anyway, happy with however much he had to give.

It was never Belle's face he saw in his dreams, nor her body. There was only one woman he wanted, only one woman he had ever loved.


	9. Chapter 9

Rhett smoothed sweat-sticky strands of hair back from Bonnie's pale forehead and kissed her warm skin. She snuffled in her sleep, rooting her face into the crook of his neck. Gently, he disentangled her arms and legs from his neck and torso, and rearranged them into a comfortable position on the little bed under the window. He pulled the blankets up to her chin, and with a curt nod at Lou, eased back out of the nursery.

Bonnie's evening terrors had become routine at Tara, hardly more disturbing than they had been in Atlanta. Even her cousins in the nursery were used to the outbursts. After several reoccurrences over the past two weeks Bonnie's nighttime disruptions engendered no more response than a sleepy roll over in their beds, returning to their own dreams swiftly when the cries stopped. And they were stopped swiftly now. Rhett slept lightly, if he slept at all until after midnight; his senses and his nerves were strained by his worry for Bonnie and his own discomfort with sleep. Lou was still little more than a decoration in the nursery for all the success she had with calming the girl. Rhett was perversely proud that Bonnie soothed easily for him when she had always resisted her mother's and Mammy's efforts. Especially now, when she had grown closer to Scarlett since they spent much more time together without work to take her mother out of the house.

The latch of the bedroom door snicked softly as he shut it behind him. He began untying the sash of his robe as soon as the door was closed, while he crossed the room to his side of the bed. He heard Scarlett roll over; her sleep was not much easier than his own. She would toss and turn for hours, before settling at last curled against his side. Sometimes her head or her hand rested on his chest; more often she remained contained within herself, the proximity to his body more like an animal seeking a winter heat source than a lover reaching for connection.

When he slipped between the sheets and Scarlett heaved her body over again, he heard a hoarse catch of distress in her breath. She shuddered, shaking from her shoulders down to chill feet which pushed against his calves. Her head began to toss, the dark strands of her loose hair tangling around her neck and catching in the bedding. Rhett turned on his side and put his hand on her shoulder, cupping the sharp curve in his palm.

"Scarlett," he said firmly, and shook her gently until he saw the black feathers of her lashes fly up from her cheeks. She gasped and held the breath for a moment, then exhaled and closed her eyes again. They both lay still, his hand warm on her body.

"Still the same dream?" Rhett asked.

"No. Yes."

"Which is it?" he asked, trying to be humorous, to defuse the tension he could feel in the knotted muscles under his palm. She made a choked sound and he pushed up on his elbow. "Scarlett?"

She stared at him in the darkness, but the light was too weak for him to read her clearly. The night stole the fire from her eyes; without illumination, they were the dark, flat green of pine needles. Her mobile face was distorted by the play of shadows. He could see a gleam of white teeth biting down on her lower lip, but bereft of other clues to her mood he was at a loss to decide if she was angry and trying to stifle it, or seething with some other emotion.

Reluctantly, Rhett released her shoulder. "It was just a dream," he said, but the words which had sounded harsh in his head came out in a caressing whisper. He braced his palm on the mattress.

"Oh, Rhett," she said. Rhett felt her fingertips brush his, briefly. He glanced down and saw her own hand flattened next to his, their fingers almost touching. "It is the same, I keep running and hunting and I can't ever find it - it always starts like that. But then…"

Rhett brushed his fingers along hers. She lay still, so he returned his hand to the mattress. "You can tell me, honey," he said kindly.

"I hear a baby crying. I can't find him so he just gets louder and louder, and I need to find him but he's always moving away. And I have to keep running, because if I stop—" She paused, her teeth worrying at her lip again. "I don't know. But it's awful."

Scarlett's hand leapt from the mattress to press against the arch of her belly under the sheets. "Do you think the baby is all right, Rhett?" she whispered.

Rhett's shoulders tensed and he watched her, alert for what little expression the dim light would let him see.

"I'm sure the baby is just fine. Do you care so much about it? You surprise me, Scarlett."

"Don't be mean," she rebutted without much force.

"Do you?"

"Of course I care," she said after a long silence. Rhett had stopped expecting a reply, and the answer when it came was so quiet he almost missed it. If a breeze had ruffled the curtains at the wrong moment, that gentle noise would have been enough to cover her words.

Rhett lowered his elbow and rolled onto his back. He steepled his hands over his stomach that roiled with sudden bile. He swallowed bitterly and waited to speak until he felt sure of his ability to maintain the illusion of nonchalance. "Is that so. You do surprise me."

"I don't know why," Scarlett retorted, her voice strained. "It's my baby—"

"Because, my dear, you care little enough for the children you already have; and do not think I have forgotten how you felt about Bonnie."

"I love Bonnie!"

"I am referring to the idiotic, even suicidal, course of action you entertained when you learned of that pregnancy. Well? You remember, don't you? Don't you, Scarlett?"

"I remember," she answered, in a slow whisper.

"So you understand why I am surprised now."

"You would be so low as to bring that up."

"I am merely trying to understand this sudden concern for a child you do not want."

Scarlett made some reply, but her words were now too quiet to make out. Rhett pressed his fingertips together firmly, trying to use the small exertion of force as a means to calm himself. An argument now would not help either of them sleep.

"I beg your pardon, my dear, I did not quite catch your words." In their familiar dance, she would now cut him in return, this odd, indirect dispute would continue unresolved, but, eventually, they might both find some meager bit of peace in sleep.

"I do want it."

In his shock, Rhett almost blurted the most useless question - _What?_ Only years of practice at moderating his discourse around Scarlett enabled him to bite his tongue on the automatic response. He needed a moment to himself, to gather his thoughts - a reprieve he was not going to get sharing her bed. She wanted this baby - _his_ baby? He had hoped, once; made a foolish, love-struck mistake in believing her distaste for carrying a child was a reflection of her loveless marriage. He had dared to believe _his_ child might be different, that with enough time their marriage might be different. He had been a fool, then; he must keep his wits about him now.

Did this change mean anything? Could her feelings about the baby signal a more profound change of heart? No, that was surely an impossible dream, a hope long squandered. He had used her, very nearly abused her, on that glorious and demented night back in April; and then he had abandoned her for six unforgivable months. After his actions, it was simply unimaginable.

Then how to explain it?

He had been quiet for too long. Scarlett spoke again, her tone making an accusation of her confession. "I do want this baby, Rhett."

His thoughts moved quickly through the last weeks at Tara. He remembered the ultimatums thrown down like a gauntlet on the porch; but her soft plea, _hold me_ , that night in their bed, and the firm warm life of her stomach under his hand - for the first and last time. Kissing her palm and her wrist and she did not pull away. The nights, often enough, when she came to rest against him, her hand flat against his heartbeat. The blur of memories passed in an instant, recalled and interpreted as swiftly as he ever looked at a hand in poker, and with no more hesitation than calling an opponent's bluff he bet the pot.

Rhett rolled back onto his side and reached for her, found her hand against her stomach with unerring instinct and covered it with his own.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Yes, Scarlett, why. Why do you want this baby? You did not want any of your other babies. Don't deny it, we both know it's true. You were only too happy to let Melanie raise Wade. I remember a very illuminating conversation when you were carrying Ella. And I have already mentioned your little scene when you found out about Bonnie. If you insist I will credit that you have grown very close to her in these last two weeks. You certainly seem to care for her, and even Wade and Ella, although they are both still clearly terrified of you. You were, above all, very - firm - in expressing your desire to be done with children."

"Why must you always—oh! A gentleman would not say such things."

"That's an old saw, my dear, and you know my answer. Stop dissembling. Tell me why."

"I don't know why! I just - I do. Now leave me alone. I'm tired."

He heard her, but she did not roll away, did not even move to disengage the hand beneath his.

"Is it so difficult a question for you to answer?"

"I did answer. I don't know. Don't all women want babies?"

"Now you are simply airing some platitude you've heard from Melanie Wilkes, for I doubt any of your current set would think or say such a thing. You don't believe that."

Her stomach, already taut beneath their hands, seemed to tense, a change in the surface just barely felt in his fingertips which overspread hers. He cursed the dim room again, as he could only see the flash of her teeth as she pulled her lip between them. She seemed to be struggling, but with what? Was she trying to concoct a clever lie so he would shut up and leave her be, or was she truly confused and trying to make sense of herself?

"Because - I have more time, now, for a baby. My businesses are going well, and with your - _our_ \- money, and - well I just don't have as much to worry about. I can - I can play with him, and teach him things. I always meant to teach Wade, you know, but there was the war and everybody at Tara to look after. I just don't have to worry about all those things anymore."

She was a wonder. She never seemed to see her own self clearly, had no concept that - even with those obstacles gone - a sudden interest in motherhood might not be sustainable. And nothing she had said even began to explain the source of this transformation.

"With him?"

"I think it's a boy, Rhett. I hope so."

"You don't want a boy, Scarlett. Boys are troublesome creatures. Just look at me."

"I want it to be a boy."

"He'll be a hellion."

"Rhett…"

He waited, but she said no more.

"Did you have something more to say, pet?"

The hand beneath his moved just a bit, a slight twist of her wrist edging her palm up and down. After another long silence, she whispered, "No. Good night, Rhett."

"Good night, Scarlett," he said, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

She paused a moment, then rolled away. Her hand slipped from beneath his, and he let his palm brush across her nightdress before lifting it from her hot form. He turned on his back again, linking his fingers over his stomach and staring up at the ceiling.

"Do you?" Came the faint whisper, the unexpected question taking a moment to register.

"Do I? Do I what, Scarlett?"

"Do you want our baby?"

His first thought was that she had made an interesting choice of words. _Our_ baby. Yes; theirs. Not just his, or hers - certainly not, despite his nightmare fodder, hers and someone else's; hers and Ashley's. _Our baby._ A child conceived on one insane, delirious night. A child that, he might have briefly hoped in the first dim dawn after that night, had been conceived in love. It had been a foolish, frightening thought, and unable to face her rejection, he had run away - and merely postponed the inevitable.

How in the world had she come to want this baby, after what he had done? Of his own desires, he was certain.

"Of course I want _our_ baby," he replied. Scarlett was generally so inattentive that he had little fear she would notice much less understand the layers of meaning ascribed to his words with the gentle emphasis. If it was not written down, preferably with dollar signs in front, her analytical skills were incredibly limited.

Scarlett made no response to his words. Rhett exhaled slowly, controlling his breath so it did not come out in a sigh of - disappointment? Hurt? He had to somehow stop giving her the power to hurt him.

Rhett continued to stare at the ceiling, tuning his senses to her breathing, waiting for the slow change that would indicate sleep. The mattress shivered, then stilled, then shivered again. He felt a warmth against his hip and elbow. Turning his head, he saw that Scarlett had scooted, intentionally or not, across the bed until her back touched him. He craned his neck to see her face. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep; but even in the darkness he could see that the rise of her cheek was darker than the pale skin of her forehead. Was she blushing?

Taking another gamble - he had won the first hand, after all, or at least not lost the ante - he rolled to his side. With deliberate slowness, like a hunter approaching a wild animal, he stretched his right arm out, lifted her hair from her neck and slid his arm under the gap, his bicep offering a firm pillow for the curve of her neck and jaw.

The mattress trembled again. Scarlett had shifted one more time, closing the gap between her back and his chest. _To hell with it_ , he thought, and slid his hand from his hip and placed it gently on her side, his fingertips following the swell of her stomach. As minutes passed and she did not shake him off, the tension in his back and shoulders slowly eased. In the last minutes before sleep claimed him, in the haze where conscious thought has gone but some awareness remains, he shifted his own body until they were flush against each other, thigh to thigh, her rear snugged into the angle of his hip. With a reflexive gesture that time had somehow not dimmed, he briefly lifted his hand from her stomach to draw her long hair away and wrap it across his throat, tucked under his chin where it could not tickle his face and disturb his sleep with the ghostly, spidery sensation.

Rhett tipped his head down until her fragrant hair filled his senses. His hand pressed against her belly again, feeling warmth and life in the firm curve beneath his palm.

* * *

 _OK, now I'm just a slacker with no excuses. Thank you for continuing to read and review! The updates will keep coming, don't worry._


	10. Chapter 10

A month after Rhett's arrival from Charleston, Will took the children into Jonesboro for Court Day. By the standards of November, it was a balmy day even for Georgia. In such fair weather, the town would have nearly a carnival atmosphere, as the local planter families profited from the chance to relieve their customary isolation with social communion.

Suellen and Scarlett, both now visibly _enceinte_ , were excluded from the outing, so Prissy and Mammy would accompany the group. At breakfast, Will extended an invitation to Rhett. Although Rhett had no more interest in socializing with the remnants of Clayton County aristocracy than he had when pressed into attending a country barbecue a decade previously, the isolated plantation life was wearing on him and the prospect of conversation with bitter Confederates and ignorant farmers seemed more tempting than it had any right to be.

As he turned his head from Bonnie to accept Will's offer, his gaze traversed Scarlett's. She looked away almost immediately, but in that brief glimpse his heart dropped precipitously into his gut. The fierce light in her eyes was - what was it, exactly? Hope - but what did she hope? For a respite from his unwelcome presence, most likely. Desperation? It wasn't an emotion he often ascribed to Scarlett, but there was something wild in her face that recalled their hot September escape from Atlanta.

"Thank you, Will, but not this time," he heard himself respond.

Scarlett raised her eyes to his. Rhett knew his expression to be perfectly bland, the façade easy to maintain after years of practice. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly, then faltered, and at last tightened into a scowl. It was the shift of an instant, so rapid it might have been his imagination.

Rhett dipped his chin at his wife. "I hope my presence won't disturb you, Mrs. Butler, if you were hoping to be alone."

"Of course not," Scarlett muttered.

In the end, if Rhett was not to go with, Bonnie would not be cajoled to go without him. The Benteens, Wade, Ella, Mammy, and Prissy were bundled into the wagon while Bonnie watched from her father's arms. In deference to Mammy's advancing age, the old woman was offered a seat on the wagon board next to Will, while the children and Prissy were jostled in the back.

Suellen had excused herself from the breakfast table with a headache. As the wagon rattled away, Rhett and Bonnie turned to face Scarlett on the porch. Rhett braced one foot on the steps and sat Bonnie on his thigh.

"Well, my dear," he remarked casually, "You've had your wish, or nearly. You've got me all to yourself today - me, and Bonnie."

"You're as conceited as ever," Scarlett replied without venom. "I didn't have any such wish."

"You had no desire to spend the day with our daughter?"

There was a bright flash of something like pain in his wife's pale green eyes. Scarlett quickly covered the fleeting burst of feeling with a coquettish smile, advancing to stroke Bonnie's tangled hair. "Of course I want to spend the day with Bonnie," she said. "Would you like to play with Mother? We could bring some toys down to the parlor so your Aunt Sue can sleep."

Bonnie turned to loop her arms around Rhett's neck. "Daddy, too," she declared.

Scarlett's lips twitched as if fighting off a frown, and her response was clipped. "Daddy too, if that's what you want, precious. But wouldn't it be fun to be - well, just us two girls? I'm sure Daddy has b-other things he'd like to be doing."

"Nothing better than spending the day with you," Rhett said, disguising the subject of his reply by bending to set Bonnie on her feet. "Go on, Bonnie, pick out your favorite toys to bring down from the nursery."

As Bonnie toddled into the house through the door held open by Scarlett, Rhett ascended the remaining steps to the porch floor. He purposely crowded Scarlett, tangling his legs in her long skirts. Scarlett's hands fluttered like two small birds with an aimless nervous movement, before she knotted her fingers together.

"Have you developed a fondness for children's games, Scarlett?" Her shoulders squared, a telltale sign that she was bristling at what he had intended to be gentle teasing. "Smooth your fur, my dear," he added quietly, brushing his knuckles lightly down her upper arm.

"Maybe I have!" she smarted, twitching her shoulder away from his touch. "Not that it would matter to you. You've always tried to make sure Bonnie only wants to spend time with you, and no one else."

Rhett studied her, a little shocked. Of course Bonnie spent most of her time with him - when had Scarlett ever been interested in their little girl? She had laughed outright at the beginning of his campaign to turn the tide of disapproval that they had let sweep them away from polite society. She never spared a moment for any of her children if she could help it. Rhett pinched Scarlett's chin, arresting her mid-motion as she tried to turn away from him and forcing her eyes up to his. He studied her, the crisp winter sunlight stark and revealing as it played across her sharp features. She jerked her chin defiantly but he held firm. She returned his gaze with daggers of her own, angry but not deceptive, not trying to throw him off with the obfuscating charms of coquetry.

"You can't be serious," he said at last, releasing her. "You haven't spared her a moment of your time since she was born."

"At least I've been home nights when she needed me!"

"Yes, and what a _comfort_ you have been," he snapped. He didn't have to see her face to know they were both thinking of that night at the beginning of April, when the light had gone out. Scarlett paused in the act of reaching for the front door. But instead of turning to respond to him, after a moment he saw her slim shoulders tighten, and then she was pushing open the door and letting it swing shut again behind her.

Rhett dropped heavily into one of the scattered chairs on the porch. If he had thought a day alone together to be a precious opportunity, then he had thoroughly squandered it. He had only meant to tease her, to excite some bloom of color in her too-pale face; not to provoke her into such bitter anger, and foment his own caustic barbs.

There was a brief patter of sound from inside the house. Rhett heard Bonnie's high, sweet voice and the indistinct noise of Scarlett's reply. Then it faded. They must have collected the toys from the nursery and crossed the front hall, until their voices were swallowed by the parlor.

Rhett lit a cigar and smoked steadily. When it had dwindled to a black nub, he tossed it over the railing and it landed, smoking, on the dirt and gravel drive.

In the open doorway of the front parlor, he paused to take in the domestic apparition before him, sidestepping behind the frame to hide his presence. A surfeit of toys was clustered around the scarred legs of the furniture. She must have had her hands and arms full gratifying Bonnie's wishes.

Mother and daughter were seated together, snuggled into a corner of the sofa nearest the fireplace. Both black heads were bent over a doll. Scarlett's hair was drawn back into a low chignon, typical of the more casual coiffures she had adopted since her retreat to Tara. The smooth style contrasted with Bonnie's untamed curls that brushed her mother's cheek where it was pressed against the girl's temple. Scarlett's voice was low, pitched for the small ear near her mouth, and Rhett could not make out what she was saying as her slim fingers skipped down the front of the doll's dress.

They made a pretty picture. Bonnie was so like Scarlett, stubborn and willful; so like her mother had been, in another time. Physically, Bonnie had more O'Hara in her appearance than Butler. The sharp chin, the shape of her mouth, the color of her hair - but for her curls and blue eyes, she might have been Scarlett as a child.

Suddenly loathe to disturb the unexpected intimacy in the parlor, Rhett turned away from the warm scene. He headed away down the hallway to the back of the house, to the office where Scarlett kept up with the ledgers and mail from Atlanta, where he handled his own business correspondence. They danced to a silent tune in sharing the office, tacitly endeavoring to never actually be in the cramped space at the same time. He couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the stack of telegrams and letters. Despite the early hour, he was suddenly exhausted, and instead of taking a seat behind the desk he lay down on the uncomfortable sofa. He still rarely slept a full night between Bonnie's dreams and his own, and it did not take long for him to drift into a doze.

The boy was toddling ahead of him on sturdy legs, as plump and round as Bonnie's had been at that age, running away down the dirt path. Pine trees rose tall on either side of the narrow trail, blocking the sun and nearly all the sky. Only a thin strip of blue was visible overhead. The path was smooth, not rutted with tracks or even broken by zealous tree roots, just dusty brown and giving off little puffs of dirt with each smack of the baby's steps. Although Rhett's legs were long, he drew no closer to the child. But the trail was safe, stretching in an unbroken ribbon ahead of them, so he kept pace with the boy without worry.

A small, cool hand slipped into his own. Rhett looked down and smiled, freely and openly, at his wife. She did not notice. Her eyes were fixed on the boy - on their son - fixed on the path ahead. He could not read any expression in the sharp lines of her profile. A feeling of almost unknown contentment expanded warmly in his chest as he strolled, hand in hand with Scarlett, down this bright path with their son just ahead.

She slipped her hand free and he reached for it, ready to laugh, to play her teasing game of cat and mouse, but she easily evaded his grasp and was soon out of reach. He could not speed up, could not move any faster, and somehow the length of his legs was not enough to overtake her. She drifted away, ahead of him, until she reached the boy and lifted him into her arms. Rhett saw tousled black hair and a brief gleam of green eyes as the baby looked over her shoulder.

The light was changing. The forest was growing dark. The sunlight that had somehow come through the thick walls of pine was disappearing, the world taking on a sinister aspect. The trunks of the trees thickened, dark wood swallowing branches and green pine needles, merging into solid walls on either side. The path changed, smooth brown dirt began to swirl in strange patterns beneath their feet. He recognized those patterns. He had walked this rug every day for years, walked the empty hall to his solitary bedroom, and then to the room occupied not by a wife but by a daughter. He looked up, and the pine trees were gone completely, the blue of the sky overgrown. He was in the upstairs hall of their house in Atlanta, yet it was impossibly long. The house had never been this wide. Still Scarlett and the child were ahead of him. And where was Bonnie? Was she in their room?

"Daddy!" he heard, faintly, in her high, imperious voice. She must be in their room, and he must go to her. But Scarlett - where had they gone? Rhett looked around, suddenly frantic. Where had they gone?

He saw her at the top of the stairs. The bare wood gleamed in the muted light, thickly layered with fresh varnish, polished so that the steps glowed until they disappeared into the darkness. She held the baby in her arms, his head nestled in the crook of her neck and his chubby legs dangling along her hip. Beyond her lay the bedroom where Bonnie called his name.

"Daddy!"

"You never wanted us," Scarlett said. Her voice was dreamy, the soft notes more jarring than her usual harshness.

"Darling?"

"DADDY!"

"You have Bonnie. You never wanted us."

"That isn't true. Don't say that, Scarlett."

"You never wanted us," Scarlett said for a third time, the wistful tone of her voice taking none of the strength out of her accusation.

She stepped off the top step, but her foot never connected with the stair. They were tumbling down, both of them, Scarlett with his son in her arms, rolling over and over down the endless stairs into the darkness yet never falling far enough to pass from his sight. He was frozen at the landing, just a step behind where she had stood. Close enough he could have reached her, before she fell. Bonnie was screaming for him but Scarlett and the baby were falling, falling away, and he saw the slick of blood spreading beneath them on the stairs, staining the wood as she rolled down into the darkness.

"Rhett."

He couldn't move, couldn't save her.

"Rhett!"

He blinked, and his eyes opened on her face, inches from his own.

"Scarlett?" His voice sounded hoarse, as if he hadn't used it for days. His conscious mind struggled to surface, to repel the lingering nightmare: that was just a dream, this was Tara; Scarlett was whole, upright on her own two feet and peering down at him with annoyance and concern, a faint flush tinting otherwise pale cheeks. An animal pain borne of his most basic instincts was nearly overpowering. His arms trembled but he denied the need to hold her. His throat ached but he swallowed the words. He had not almost lost her. It was just a dream.

Just another God damned dream! When would this infernal plague on his mind cease?

Slowly, Rhett swung his legs to the side and sat up. He braced his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head in his hands with a groan, then pushed his fingers through his hair and leaned against the back of the sofa.

"What time is it?"

"It's 3 o'clock. You missed dinner. Bonnie's napping." He had been asleep for hours.

"Thank you for waking me," he muttered. "I'm glad you've learned a gentler strategy since the first time we met."

Instead of taking his crude bait, Scarlett abruptly sat down next to him. Their knees almost touched as she moved closer than was necessary on the long sofa.

"Rhett?" Scarlett pressed her palms against her thighs and studied the backs of her hands. Rhett took advantage of her downcast eyes to study her, taking in the image of her whole, healthy, and blooming with life to combat the lingering, sick memory of blood and death.

"Yes, my dear?" he questioned blandly.

"There's a plate for you in the kitchen," Scarlett declared after a breath. She stood abruptly and started moving towards the door.

"Thank you, Mrs. Butler," he said, watching her with a furrowed brow as she made to depart.

The door to the hall was open. Scarlett stopped and then just as suddenly changed her plans again. She stepped back and shut the door, then flattened one palm against the aged wood while the other still held the knob.

"You called my name," she said without turning around.

Rhett felt the breath leave his lungs. He hadn't called her name in the dream, he was sure of it. What perverse reflex had made it cross the barrier of consciousness to manifest in the waking world? He felt suspended on a wire like that fool above Niagara, wary of a false step. If Scarlett had any inkling of what had been going on in his head these months - these _years_ , truth be told, though the dreams were definitely getting worse of late - she would not hesitate to use that against him. Hadn't he thrown her own dreams in her face? What easy ammunition he would place into her vindictive grasp if she knew he had his own nightmares, terrifying enough for him to call her name out loud.

"Did I?" Rhett replied, as if this information was of no interest to him. He would not deny that he had done so, that might make her too suspicious; but he would not give her any reason to wonder at its meaning.

"Yes," Scarlett answered, swinging around to face him. Rhett held his tongue, the moment stretching out until the silence made her shift uneasily on her feet. "Why?" she blurted at last.

Rhett shrugged in a pretense of unconcern. "Frankly, I couldn't say. I suppose it must have been a dream," he said, cloaking his confession with a tone of disinterest to signal that whatever had motivated the sound, it was of so little importance that he could not even recall the circumstance. It was a pitiful lie; his heart was still racing uncomfortably fast and he struggled to maintain his bland expression when he wanted to devour her with his eyes. He slid his hands casually into his pockets, leaning against the seat back and angling his head in a pose of cool curiosity. He made his hands into fists to combat the itching on palms that wanted to clutch her to himself, to feel the solid reality of her healthy form in his grasp.

Scarlett swayed slightly, as if arresting a desire to step forward. "You sounded...distressed," she said, speaking the last word almost too softly to hear in the heavy silence of the small, enclosed room.

"What do you want, Scarlett? Such wifely solicitude ill becomes you." Rhett bit out, beginning to lose his grip on the fraying ends of his patience.

Scarlett's green eyes flashed brightly, stung by his harsh tone and sneering judgement. But she lifted her chin proudly and snapped, "You are right. What wifely concern should I possibly have for a husband who abandoned me for six months?" She touched her belly with a fleeting gesture. "Abandoned us," she finished, her voice dropping below a whisper.

His knotted stomach turned cold. "Scarlett - I didn't know," he said, unable to keep a note of pain from humming through the words.

"Well you should have considered the possibility! After - after—" She faltered.

Rhett eyed her quizzically, watching the pale flush spread across her cheeks. Her eyes gleamed, reflecting the pale light like crystals. In fact, he realized abruptly, they were shimmering wetly, as if lightly veiled by tears.

Fearing he might be unsteady on his feet still, Rhett did not rise, but gestured to the spot she had so briefly occupied on the sofa. "Come sit down."

To his surprise, she didn't argue, but plodded dully over and took the proffered seat. She gathered her skirts in one hand to keep even the crisp fabric from touching him.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "You are right. I should have considered it. I should have at least let you know where we were."

"Thank you," Scarlett said quietly, keeping her eyes averted, her free hand playing with the fabric caught in her other fist.

She seemed as skittish as a wild fox. Slowly, Rhett reached over and covered both her hands with his left hand, stilling their nervous fidgeting.

"We've rather been at cross purposes, haven't we, Scarlett?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean every time we talk, it turns into an argument. Aren't you tired of it?"

Scarlett tugged her hands free and crossed them over her chest. "If you want peace, you should look at yourself, Rhett," she said, lifting her chin. "Maybe if you weren't such a devil all the time…"

Rhett chuckled ruefully and snatched one of her hands back, folding her fingers over his own. "Yes, my angel, it is all my fault. Ah - no, don't swell up, I mean it. You deserve a little peace right now, don't you?" He lowered his gaze to hide the blazing emotion he was sure must be obvious in his face, and disguised the subterfuge by lifting her knuckles to his lips in a gesture of exaggerated gallantry.

"Do you remember when you were carrying Bonnie?" he asked, conceding to her peculiar modesty with his phrasing in an effort to keep this conversation from derailing as was their usual wont.

"Yes."

"We got along well enough then, wouldn't you say?"

"I suppose."

"You won't make this easy for me, will you."

"I don't see why I should," Scarlett shot back quickly, but there was a teasing note in her voice as she relaxed her stiff guard.

"Just for the fun of it," he murmured, running this thumb over her knuckles.

Rhett thought of her body close to his in the middle of the night, the curve of her pregnancy under his palm, the scent of lemon and the scratchy tickle of her hair. In the cool winter daylight, such intimacy seemed impossibly distant despite the tremor he felt where her fingers rested on his own.

"Rhett," she said, without elaboration. He closed his eyes, taking one more moment to be sure of himself and gathering strength from the warmth of her hand in his. Then he pressed another kiss to her knuckles before rising from the sofa.

"Thank you for waking me. Dare I ask if between the two of you, there happens to be any dinner left?"

Scarlett smoothed her skirts with a brisk movement and stood as well. "Your plate is in the kitchen."

"A small blessing then. I've seen you eat," he said, adding a wink when she raised her narrowed eyes to his. She drew her head back slightly, then - as he had hoped - offered him a wry smile instead of a hurt and angry retort. Rhett clenched his now-empty fist in response to a sudden urge to grab her and kiss the sweet, soft curve of her mouth. He could count the smiles she had given him in the last month on one hand, and the expression triggered an old feeling of indomitable hope.

A truce was a good beginning.

* * *

 _Happy 80th anniversary, Gone with the Wind._


	11. Chapter 11

It was already winter dark when Rhett disembarked from the Atlanta train on Christmas Eve. He flipped a coin to the porter who had just laid the last parcel on top of the small mountain of Christmas gifts stacked on the platform. On the street side, Will Benteen was waiting with the farm wagon. Rhett took the stack of ledgers from under his arm, deposited them on the bench seat, then turned to help Will load the festive cargo.

"Merry Christmas," Will offered in greeting as they passed.

"Merry Christmas, Will."

When the gifts were secure in the wagon bed, the two men climbed up for the ride home to Tara. Rhett pulled his overcoat close about himself as the wagon jounced out onto the road.

"Welcome back, Rhett. Hope your business all went well in Atlanta."

"Couldn't be better. Even Scarlett should be pleased by these books. And how is everyone at Tara?"

"Just fine, everyone's just fine. Looks like you might have got carried away back there." Will jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"I do believe I was overcome by the Christmas spirit, Will. I hope you don't mind."

Will shook his head. "Naw. Seems like it's a special Christmas this year, anyway. We haven't all had Christmas together in years."

A special Christmas indeed! It was all Atlanta could talk about, the last yoke of Yankee oppression thrown off with the results of the election on the 19th. Governor Bullock long gone and, at last, a Democrat back in the governor's seat. When the Butlers returned to Atlanta, a discussion he had not yet tried to broach with Scarlett, she would find the town much changed. Most of her friends had fled the city, leaving without warning in the wake of Bullock's departure.

Rhett's own welcome had seemed untarnished by whatever scandal had flourished in the wake of Scarlett's departure. He had taken a room in the hotel, having decided that the effort of opening their behemoth of a house for so short a stay was not worth the undertaking. He had visited his desk at the bank, though as he was not a regular employee there was little business for him there. But a steady stream of callers had kept him busy, men and women stopping by on the pretense of questions of loans or business, but with a too-obvious real mission of satisfying their need for gossip. Mrs. Merriwether herself came by to deliver a payment on her loan - never mind that the books clearly showed she had made a payment just the week before.

Rhett knew the town must have seethed that summer when Scarlett closed up the house. Had her pregnancy been suspected? Had it been bandied about in the same breath as the name of Ashley Wilkes? Bonnie's future, and now that of the unborn baby, depended on his success in reducing the gossip to naught.

"Mrs. Merriwether! How very good to see you," he said, accepting her check without a second glance. "I do hope you haven't sold out of Christmas cakes just yet. I simply cannot return to Tara without an armful of treats. I fear they would shut the door in my face."

There was a pleased gleam in Mrs. Merriwether's eye at his words. "Of course, Captain Butler! I will set aside the best for you this very afternoon. And when do you return to Tara?"

"Soon, I hope," Rhett answered, leaning forward over the desk. "I know I should not speak of such delicate matters, Mrs. Merriwether, but I am soon to be a father again. It is very difficult to be away from my family for long. What a Christmas!" he said expansively, taking in his own personal circumstances as well as those of the entire state of Georgia.

"Of course, Captain Butler," the old dragon said with a hesitation that betrayed her surprise at his enthusiasm. "And how is your wife? We haven't seen her around town in so long."

Rhett nodded. "We decided the country would be much better for her, in her condition, you understand. I am eager to be back there when my business in town is concluded. Of course I am! It's a hard thing to be away from one's family at such a time. I know you understand. And how are your little grandchildren doing?"

By the time Mrs. Merriwether had left the bank, Rhett felt assured that he had played the part of the doting husband and expectant father with enough sincerity to at least complicate any rumors on the state of his marriage or his child's paternity. The more vindictive characters would never be willing to believe anything positive about Scarlett, but he could do no more than his best effort to convince them of his marital harmony.

It was not just a show, put on for the benefit of reputation and social status. Rhett found he had meant every word. He was eager to be back at Tara. He missed Bonnie - and his wife. They were all growing used to the new sleeping arrangements. Will's generic reassurance on the well-being of the residents of Tara was an unsatisfactory panacea. He needed to see her with his own eyes.

The white farmhouse's front windows glowed with welcoming light when the wagon pulled up by the front steps. With help from Pork, the many parcels were soon piled on the porch, and Will drove off to the barn. Rhett instructed Pork to transfer the gifts from the porch to the parlor where they would engulf the base of the Christmas tree. Then, selecting a few boxes himself, he went inside.

The extended family was gathered in the front parlor. His eyes found Scarlett immediately, drinking in the sight of her even as he crouched down to greet the children. He closed his eyes when Bonnie threw her arms around his neck, breathing deeply of her familiar baby-sweet smell. After he opened his eyes, he gave his full attention to the children. Bonnie refused to let go of her Daddy, so he hugged Wade and Ella each with one arm.

Leaving Bonnie behind at Tara had been a risk, but no telegram had come to Atlanta recalling him after an inconsolable night. He would hope to get the truth from Scarlett later, but it seemed the conciliatory gesture of trusting her with their daughter had not been a mistake.

From his coat pockets Rhett lifted the small parcels he had grabbed. There was one for every child, not just Wade, Ella, and Bonnie; small brown packages of gingerbread from Mrs. Merriwether's bakery and some sticks of peppermint candy. The treats were enough to persuade Bonnie to relinquish him, and he settled her on the parlor floor where she tried to suck the hard candy and eat the crumbling gingerbread at the same time.

Rhett took a few short steps to where Scarlett sat on a low sofa. "May I have a seat, Mrs. Butler?"

She looked up at him from under her lashes and nodded. The corners of her lips curved just a little, poised to form a smile. He sat next to her, reaching into his pocket for one more small brown parcel. "Tell the truth now, Scarlett. Did you worry I hadn't brought something for you, too?"

Scarlett's eyes sparkled as she stared at the small package, but she kept her hands clasped demurely across her stomach. "Even you wouldn't be that big a cad, Rhett Butler."

"Then I seem to have risen in your estimation of late," he murmured. His tone was light but he searched her face carefully as he spoke, hoping her reaction might provide some clue to the amount of truth in his statement. Scarlett's eyelashes flickered as she looked up at him and then lowered her gaze again almost immediately. Her cheeks were just a little rosier.

"May I have my present now?"

Rhett tossed the box gently and caught it one handed. "It is not yet Christmas."

"Oh, but Rhett! Don't tease me," she pleaded, raising her eyes and holding his gaze.

"Are not Christmas presents meant to be opened on Christmas morning?"

Scarlett's square jaw took on a decidedly mutinous jut. "What's the harm in opening one little gift? You certainly want to show it off, the way you're carrying on," she replied, jerking her stubborn chin at the package that was turning somersaults in the air again before being landing in Rhett's open palm.

"Perhaps I am just waiting to be asked nicely. After all, we must set an example - for the children."

Scarlett's eyes flashed and her lips twisted, clearly fighting a smile before pursing into a careless-seeming moue.

"Please, Rhett."

"Please what, my pet?"

"Oh, you are impossible! This had better be worth it."

Rhett merely smiled and raised his eyebrows. How long had it been since they had conversed so gently, without tension, anger, and disappointment poisoning their discourse? His teasing made her laugh, like it had when he called on her during the war, instead of provoking her anger into useless arguments.

Scarlett gave a disgruntled sigh. "Please may I have my present."

"You had only to ask," he said, offering the flat package into her eager grasp. He released it slowly, letting his fingers linger against hers. He had a brief glimpse of turbulent green eyes before she bent her head over the gift.

Rhett had been studying her for years and he was sure he did not imagine the tremor in her fingers as she tore the paper away from a black box.

Inside, there was an elegantly carved comb of silver leaves with a small bird-in-flight set with a single emerald on its back. Tucked into the edges of the leaves were four small diamonds. He had thought of her immediately when he saw it in the jeweler's window. Green, of any shade, always made him think of her. To Scarlett it would just be another pretty ornament, a decoration to accentuate her own beauty. With a sentimental impulse he would never admit, he had thought of each diamond as one of her children. Wade, and Ella; their precious Bonnie; the new baby.

"Oh, Rhett, it's darling."

"Let me," he murmured, slipping the comb from her grasp. He tucked it gently between the curls of her high-piled hair, letting his fingertips linger against the thick strands. The comb shone against her black hair, and her eyes glittered to match.

Scarlett pressed her palm onto the top of his thigh. "Thank you," she whispered. Rhett's breath caught in his throat as he looked at her downturned face. Bristly black lashes veiled her eyes, their fringed tips resting against pink cheeks. The simple, sincere gratitude took him back to the early days of their marriage.

An unexpected urge throttled his voice. In a different marriage, he would have responded with the words he guarded from her more carefully than his own life. He had not been so tempted since April. He had not slipped since April.

Excruciatingly aware of the crowded parlor, Rhett gathered Scarlett's free hand in his own and brought her knuckles to his lips.

"You look well," he said, letting their hands down slowly. Scarlett shifted in her seat and retrieved both her hands from his body, and pressed her palms along the lower curve of her stomach.

"Yes. I mean, I feel well. I am well."

"Bonnie didn't give you any trouble while I was away?"

"No, Rhett. And she slept through the nights."

"That's good," he murmured, though he was a little stung by the news. Bonnie's need for him had been a blessing as his relationship with Scarlett deteriorated, her adoration a salve to the pride wounded by his failure to win Scarlett's affections. And although something had changed with Scarlett, it was something fragile and tentative, unsure of itself or where it was going - or how far it would go. For a gambling man, it was not a good bet. Not yet. It was hard not to fear that he might lose them both, Bonnie's affections transferring to her mother while Scarlett's remained stubbornly fixated on her pallid little gentleman.

"She asked about you. Every day," Scarlett added, touching his leg again. Her statement could be uncharacteristically insightful compassion, but was more likely simply an honest report of what had gone on in his absence. Rhett, watching her, was moved by the perception of sadness lingering in her gaze to offer his own reassurance.

"She did the same about you in Charleston."

Scarlett ducked her head with a scornful huff.

"Well," Rhett added, gently pinching her chin and raising her eyes to meet his gaze again, "Perhaps not every single day. But she did ask about you, my dear. She missed her mother very much."

Scarlett's eyes darted away from his, taking in the children playing and indulging in their sweets, Suellen focused on some piece of mending, and Will hidden behind a newspaper. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the Butlers' awkward intimacy, and the children were loud enough to swallow any conversation before it could reach understanding ears.

"Don't lie to me, Rhett," Scarlett hissed, her gaze focused on the intricate folds of his cravat. "In April—"

"I spoke in haste."

Scarlett scoffed again. "You don't need to flatter me with falsehoods. You - well you were right." Her eyes met his briefly. They were hard, flat jade; strangely inscrutable. "She prefers you, and we both know it. But this baby…"

"My dear?"

"Nothing. Never mind. I don't want to discuss it."

"Do you persist in your obstinate desire for a son?" Rhett asked, relenting to her wishes for once. He was not sure what she wanted to say about the new baby, but now was neither the time nor the place to pursue such things. Anything he might try to say would only spark a fight.

He could not take back the words flung at her in anger; especially as they were not wholly untrue. Harshly exaggerated and unnecessarily cruel, but it would be a lie to try and soothe her by disavowing those words and praising her aptitude as a mother. She was curt, impatient, and uninterested most of the time - although she seemed to have changed just a little on that front since he had left in the spring. Scarlett was far from being a doting paragon of motherhood in the mold of Melanie Wilkes, but he had caught her in the midst of struggles to get Ella to sit and read a story, or awkwardly fumbling through a conversation with Wade when the boy came in from outdoors in the early evenings. And he had seen clearly how much she adored Bonnie. He wondered how he had never noticed it in Atlanta; she was so busy at home, with the stores and the damned mills, but in his own estimation it was unlike himself not to have noticed the time they did spend together. She was not as recklessly indulgent as he knew himself to be, but it would be unfair to characterize the limits she tried to impose on Bonnie's willful nature as the "bullying" of which he had accused her. Bonnie was spoiled, obstinate, and temperamental, but lavish in her affections - when she had her way. She was, quite frankly, her mother in miniature, in ways that went much deeper than their physical similarities. Rhett was still inclined to give her her head in all things, but he had kept his promise to support his wife's and Mammy's decisions for the little girl, and his own fears of tarnishing Bonnie's shining adoration had proved unfounded so far.

"I do think he's a boy, Rhett," Scarlett was saying.

"Boys are nothing but trouble," Rhett replied lightly. "You're sure you won't let me drown it, if it's a boy?"

"Rhett!" she hissed, slapping his forearm. "Decent people don't joke about such things."

"My dear, I've never claimed to be decent people - at least, not to you. Well, if you insist, I'll let you keep your boy. But mark my words, Scarlett, he'll be a hellion. You'll regret it."

"I—" Scarlett snapped her mouth shut like a fish.

"Yes, my pet? Something to say?"

"No. You shouldn't joke about such things."

"So you have said. I will try to be on better behavior in the future."

"You! Hah. You may have fooled those old guinea hens in Atlanta, Rhett Butler, but I know you better than that."

"Do you?" he asked, capturing the hand which had smacked him. He massaged her palm and fingers, keeping his gaze on hers. "Well, we won't quibble about that. If you think you know me so well, far be it from me to contradict you. Still, I wonder. I wonder…"

"Stop speaking in riddles," Scarlett admonished, but her voice was tinged with breathlessness and utterly lacking in force.

"But, my dear! If you know me so well, surely my speech is as clear as glass to you, my riddles easily deciphered. I cannot hide from you," he murmured.

"Oh!" Scarlett huffed, and tried to tug her hand out of his grasp. Rhett cupped his hands around the base of her palm, holding her fast. "Stop that," she said.

Rhett ignored her, moving his hands on hers once again in a gentle caress. Scarlett did not look away. He pinned her with his gaze, trying to read the back of her mind - trying to decipher the thoughts and feelings she did not even recognize in herself, for with her obviously limited personal insight he knew she must have depths even she had not explored. As he had so often in the early days of their marriage, and then with less and less frequency as time went on and their intimacy eroded before disappearing entirely, he studied her, trying to see if there was anything for him there - any hope of love, any inkling of affection. Scarlett was blushing, fidgeting, unable to hold his gaze for long. Was she nervous? Why should she be nervous? Was there something new there, something previously unseen, some feeling ready to be realized?

"Daddy!" Bonnie's imperious cry interrupted his untimely reverie. She was grabbing at his pants leg and the tails of his jacket, leaving sticky candy spots and gingerbread crumbs on his otherwise pristine clothing. Reluctantly, Rhett turned his attention from Scarlett to their daughter.

"Daddy, more!" Bonnie pleaded as he lifted her onto his lap.

"More?" Rhett questioned.

"Gingy!" she cried in response, squirming on his lap and reaching to shove her hands into his pockets.

"You can't have any more," he answered gently, carefully holding her out on his knees so she couldn't reach his jacket. "You'll spoil your appetite for supper, and, you shall have the rest on Christmas morning."

"No." Bonnie said, her rotund little body contorting impressively as she tried to access his pockets.

Rhett recognized a conundrum of his own making. The more he had indulged Bonnie while they were away, the more intractable she had become, until he had resorted to placating her with sweets and treats in those few crucial moments when he truly did need her to behave. Now, he needed to tell her "no" and have the answer be respected, but he could not bribe her with the gingerbread he was not allowing her to have.

A quick glance at Scarlett showed her struggling to keep her smirk from ruining a carefully constructed expression of disinterest.

"Bonnie, you can't have more gingerbread right now. If you do, you won't want to eat any supper, and Cookie has been working hard all day to make it."

"No!"

Rhett started reeling off the supper menu, trying unsuccessfully to distract Bonnie's quest for immediate fulfillment with the promise of food to come. The more he tried to keep her away from his pockets, the more she squirmed, until he was in danger of letting her drop to the floor. His damn pockets weren't even full - he'd brought in only enough packages of sweets to give one to each child. Remembering this, he gave in to her struggles, letting Bonnie slide up his knees until her small arms could reach his pockets. She jammed both her fists in first one, then the other, and came back empty-handed both times.

This unexpected development threw Bonnie for a moment, but only a moment. She sat, stunned, for maybe all of five seconds, before giving full vent to her frustrated wrath. Her black curls bounced as she threw her head back and began to wail at the top of her voice, attaining an impressive level of volume for a little girl of less than three years old.

Rhett muttered a probably-unheard apology to both Scarlett and the Benteens as he hastily removed Bonnie from the parlor. He decided to retreat to the nursery. Her tantrum would be far less disruptive if removed to such a distance, and, should she wear herself out and fall asleep, then a bed would be close at hand. Starting up the stairs, Rhett looked back for his wife. The skin around her mouth looked tight, and she appeared to be staring at the Christmas tree. She did not look at them before Rhett lost sight of her as he climbed the stairs.


	12. Chapter 12

"Daddy," Bonnie demanded. Her chubby hands clutched Prissy's skirts.

"No, Miss Bonnie, ya cain't…"

"I want Daddy!" she repeated. Never in Bonnie's memory had a request for her father's presence been denied.

"Your daddy is busy, Miss Bonnie. Your momma's baby is comin' and Mammy tole you dat you have to play in the parlor like a good girl."

"No!" Bonnie replied. She sagged against Prissy, holding herself upright on the maid's skirts. Her head was thrown back to look up at the insecure nanny. Mammy was the voice of authority in the nursery. Prissy had been shouldering some of those duties since Wade's birth, but Miss Scarlett's first two children had been soft, pliant creatures - especially compared to the iron will of this pint sized replica of her mistress. Prissy had no aptitude for command, but she was the only adult, servant or otherwise, currently available for this nursery duty.

Miss Scarlett was having her baby. Captain Butler had been stationed in the upstairs hallway since dinner time, deaf even to the pleas of his cherished firstborn. Mammy was with her mistress, as was Scarlett's sister Suellen, heavily pregnant herself. Lou had been pressed into service but Prissy was not allowed anywhere near the childbed. After riding to fetch the doctor from Jonesboro, Will had retreated to the barn. It was too cold to send the children out, so Prissy had been put in charge of keeping all five of them shut up in the parlor with the pocket door firmly closed against the possibility of any cries from upstairs being heard by delicate ears. At least it was Christmas Day, and the abundance of new toys which had been opened - thanks to Rhett's extravagance during his visit to Atlanta - was plenty to occupy the older cousins. It was not, however, enough for Bonnie.

"Now, Miss Bonnie," Prissy pleaded, trying to loosen the sticky fists from her dress. "Ain't you got all those new presents just this morning?"

Prissy succeeded in wrenching her skirt from Bonnie's tight grasp, but the child did not obediently toddle away to the pile of presents that were adequately occupying her half-siblings and cousins. She flailed her arms against Prissy's skirts, giving vent to her rage in full-voiced screams.

The turmoil of the house during Scarlett's labor was utterly incomprehensible to the two-year-old. Her daddy had not stayed by her side to play with her new toys, in fact almost all of the adults seemed too busy for her now. There was only Prissy, and as Bonnie had spent the last six months with the girl she was quite bored with her. Prissy was not any fun, not like Daddy, nor was she any good at comfort, unlike the soft and cozy expanse of Mammy. Silly Uncle Will had not been seen since breakfast. Even sour-faced Aunty Sue had been glimpsed only in passing, as she heaved herself up the stairs.

Bonnie had been quite happy to play with her gifts for a time. In fact, she might have gone on for the evening, content with her dolls and tea set, had not Ella received the best present of all. It was a doll nearly as big as Bonnie herself, with black hair just like her own and a green dress like their mother might wear. Bonnie wanted to play with _that_ doll. When Ella would not relent and Prissy would not make her, Bonnie had had enough of this separation from the one person who always gratified her wishes. Bonnie wanted her Daddy, and she was done with being forced to stay in the parlor.

Since their arrival at Tara, Bonnie had on occasion repeated her disgust that her mother had grown "fat," but been otherwise uninterested in the idea that she would have a baby sibling. Given the very circumspect way in which this news was relayed to her, she had not connected the change in her mother with the pending arrival. She had come to understand that a new baby would be delivered to the house like a present, and as she had determined that she did not want this present, felt sure that Daddy would send it away. She would have only to ask.

But now she was asking, now she wanted her daddy, and Prissy would not get him and there was no one else to come to her aid. Frustrated and helpless, Bonnie beat her short arms against Prissy's skirts. Her round cheeks had turned bright red and her thick, short black lashes were spiked with tears. She kicked out with one leg and it connected with something.

"Ow!" Prissy yelped. She bent down and tried to wrestle her arms around the little girl. "Miss Bonnie you got to stop this," she pleaded ineffectually.

Bonnie thrashed, pushing at the unwelcome embrace. When Prissy did not give up, Bonnie threw herself to the floor to escape from the encircling arms. She screamed into the worn carpet, kicking both her legs now and pounding her fists against the rug. She would have her daddy! Someone must get her daddy.

The other children, used to their own siblings and, for Wade and Ella, used to Bonnie's especially volatile temper, ignored the little drama playing out in the center of the room. Wade was magnanimously sharing the train tracks he had received. Susie Benteen had found a length of twine that had tied a parcel and been missed in the hurried clean-up earlier that day, and looped it securely around a new doll from her Uncle Rhett. The trussed-up doll had been lain across the train tracks and Wade and his cousins were in the middle of an imaginative, exuberant hostage negotiation. Ella's attention wandered back and forth between the game and her own new doll, the nicest present she could ever remember having received. So accustomed were they, and so wrapped up in their own play, it did not even register with the four children when their youngest relative's screaming finally died away. Prissy noticed, breathing a sigh of relief when her obstinate charge finally fell asleep. Unwilling to wrestle the sturdy little girl onto the couch and risk waking her so soon, Prissy let the child be while she took up her mending basket and seated herself in a comfortable chair.

Bonnie was having trouble breathing. Her teary screaming fit had her all out of sorts, short of breath in her lungs and congested in her nose. But she had to find her daddy. Tara's hallways were not nearly so long and dark as her own home back in Atlanta, but she did not know which door was his. It was dark enough that all the doors looked the same. Mammy had warned her about the dark, and she really meant to listen, but this was far more important. Besides, Bonnie wasn't afraid of anything. Hardly anything.

Mammy had not deigned to share all the details with Bonnie about what bugaboos looked like, but she had seen the sea monsters in Wade's book about pirates. Probably they were not very different, although bugaboos lived in the dark and not the ocean. When she found Daddy, she would not have to worry about the monsters, and so she must hurry to find him before they found her.

But every breath Bonnie inhaled seemed not to be enough. Looking down, she saw the bugaboo. It had sharp claws it used to hang on to her shoulders and big thick legs which were crushing her chest into the floor. Black wings sprouted from its back and pressed against her nose, so that she had to breathe through her mouth but with the monster sitting on her, she simply could not fill her lungs.

Bonnie screamed. She used all the meager store of air in her chest to power her voice. When the monsters came, she couldn't make them go away on her own. She needed Daddy; now, she really needed him.

Rhett had spent most of Christmas Day cramped in a small, under-cushioned chair across the hall from the door of their bedroom at Tara. Will had offered to share a drink or a cigar with him in the kitchen, but Rhett had flatly refused. God damned propriety, which insisted husbands had no place beside their wives in childbed, was bad enough. He would go no further from her door than the width of the hall.

Will had discreetly left a bucket by Rhett's chosen station, but there were nearly as many cigar butts on the floor around it as there were inside the tin receptacle. For most of the day, Rhett had been deaf to the world outside that closed door. Lou and Suellen had emerged from time to time on errands, but the noise of their passage was curiously muffled. He was not even aware of Bonnie's extended tantrum, so thick was his concentration on Scarlett's closed door.

The piercing scream of her nightmare, though, shattered the stillness of the entire house. His stomach lurched painfully at the sound, but he hesitated a moment at the top of the stairs. The bedroom door was still closed, and Rhett went swiftly down to the parlor.

Rhett stepped into a curious tableau. The older children had stopped their quiet play to gape at the force of Bonnie's cries. Prissy was kneeling next to the little girl, and a long white thread stretched between her and a nearby chair. Rhett saw an indeterminate piece of discarded clothing on the seat of the chair, a mending basket on the floor. Bonnie was shoving away Prissy's attempts at comfort.

"Leave her!" Rhett barked, too urgent to be kind. His intelligent mind knew he could not blame Prissy for Bonnie's bad dreams in broad daylight, but his instincts reacted as forcefully as they had when Lou had made the mistake with the lamp. Prissy scuttled away and Rhett scooped his daughter into his arms.

Cradling Bonnie against his chest, Rhett took a seat on the sofa.

"Hush now, darling," he whispered, smoothing his large palm over her tangled curls and gently brushing away the tears tracking down her red cheeks. "You are safe. Daddy's got you. Hush, now."

Rhett murmured his gentle reassurances over and over, keeping an even, matched rhythm in his voice and the hand that rubbed her narrow back. Bonnie's screams quickly subsided; more gradually, her breathing slowed and tears ceased to fall. She wrapped her arms around Rhett's neck, and he felt dampness against his skin where she buried her face.

"Couldn't breathe!" she cried.

"Breathe in deeply now, my darling girl. Just like Daddy - that's it, Bonnie." Rhett modulated his breathing so Bonnie's small lungs would be able to match it. "Good girl. You can breathe just fine now, can't you?"

"Sat on me," Bonnie hiccoughed. "It squished me. Couldn't breathe!"

"Hush now. Daddy's here. No more monsters, darling."

Father and daughter sat together for several minutes, Rhett rocking her slowly back and forth. When Bonnie was calmed, Rhett sat her up on his knee, brushing her damp curls off her face. "Now then. Don't you want to play with Wade and Ella?" Bonnie shook her head. "Wouldn't it be a wonderful time for a tea party?" Rhett tried. "With your new tea set, I am sure it will be the most sought-after event in the parlor." Bonnie made no reply, but she stretched her arms out and wrapped them around his neck again. Sighing, Rhett pulled her close and began to rub her back again. Now that Bonnie seemed recovered from her nightmare, his attention was wandering - his concern torn between Bonnie and the progress of things upstairs behind that closed door.

For the first time, Rhett became aware of how a new baby could complicate matters. Bonnie had been first in his heart for so long, elevated there both by his own real adoration for his daughter and as a forceful stopper, capping the frustrated feelings for his wife. It seemed unlikely that Bonnie would peaceably adjust to sharing his attention and affection with a new baby. And, then, there was however things stood with Scarlett herself. He didn't know how that was, exactly, only that their relationship had changed - was still changing. That, too, might be complicated by the new baby, by the inevitable return to Atlanta.

Pressing a kiss to Bonnie's fine curls, Rhett had no doubt of his own feelings. The question was how Bonnie might adjust to sharing her favorite person with someone new; and even with her own mother - if, by some miracle, it came to that. He had been frustrated before, and not long after another similarly hopeful day. How could he hope to keep making inroads into Scarlett's heart, when back in Atlanta they would once again be on opposite sides of her locked door?

Bonnie had begun to squirm in his embrace, her natural energy finally overriding the after effects of her nightmare and her desire to sulk and bask in Rhett's attention. She let go of his neck and wiggled around until she was sitting forward on his lap and could grab at his watch chain. Bonnie tugged the watch out of his pocket and began to toy with it, flipping open the cover, turning it over in her hands, shaking it next to her ear. Rhett braced her with both hands and jostled his knees gently side to side.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," he recited in a low sing-song. Bonnie shook the watch up and down, almost keeping time with his movements and words. How soon would Scarlett want to return to Atlanta? Once she was well, there would be no reason to put it off. She would be eager to get back to the mills as soon as she had recovered, completely oblivious to renewing the scandal she had touched off in April. Everything would go back the way it had been, only now he was trapped. He couldn't take Bonnie away again and leave the new child behind, not for many months anyway. And if he did go away, with one or both children, he would not be welcome at his mother's this time. In Atlanta, he would be a helpless witness as she threw herself back into her obsession with Ashley Wilkes. It seemed impossible that this fragile new accord between them would withstand that reunion.

"Beg pardon, Mist' Rhett," Lou's breathless voice interrupted him. "Mammy sent me to tell you, you can come upstairs now."

Blank excitement covered all thought. Awkwardly, he thrust Bonnie into Lou's arms. The little girl squawked at this unwelcome change, reaching for her daddy with both hands. The watch dropped and smacked painfully into his knee and Rhett bit off a curse. He hastily unhooked the chain and handed the watch into Bonnie's grasping hands. "Here, darling. Keep this safe. I have to go see your mother, now." Rhett kissed her forehead and added, "Lou will get you some more gingerbread, wouldn't you like that? Go on, Lou, there's still some in the kitchen. Let Bonnie have as much as she wants. Let all the children have some."

Rhett took the stairs two at a time. No screams came from the parlor; the trade of his presence for a treat must have been successful. God only knew what he would have done if Bonnie had made a fit. His wife, his daughter, his baby. Another daughter? The son that Scarlett wanted?

Rhett paused outside the bedroom door, taking a moment to compose himself so that when he entered the room he appeared unhurried, relaxed, unaffected by the momentous event. He stepped through the door and into a familiar scene, differing from Bonnie's birth only in small details: the bed was smaller and less ornate, scattered rag rugs cushioned his steps instead of thick plush carpets.

Scarlett was reclining on a pile of pillows. They must have been gathered from every room in the house, for the bed they shared had not nearly so many. Her eyes were closed, her features peacefully composed; a picture of relaxation, apart from the bright spots of color high on her cheeks. His heart shuddered painfully in his chest. She was beautiful. Across the room, Mammy laid a dripping, squalling newborn on a clean white towel. The lusty cries drew Rhett away from his wife.

"So, Mammy, what have we here?" he questioned, leaning over the child whose legs and abdomen were covered by the towel as Mammy briskly dried the baby. Already, thick black hair stood on end, like a cloud of soft dandelion fuzz around the infant's head, and with no sign of curl to it.

"A lil girl, Mist'Rhett. Another lil Robillard miss."

"A baby?" he questioned, his black eyes shining. "So that's what all the fuss was about today?"

"Mist'Rhett you is bad! You knew 'twas your baby comin' into the world today, yessuh. And a prettier lil thing you din't never see, no suh, not even Miss Bonnie was this pretty when she come."

"Well don't let Bonnie hear you say that, or I'll have to buy all the sweets in Atlanta to stop her crying from the heartbreak. Now give her here, Mammy." Every hair on his arms stood on end with anticipation, though he had learned his lesson after Bonnie's birth and was rigidly holding himself in check until Mammy was ready.

Mammy discarded the damp towel and efficiently swaddled the pink-skinned newborn in a clean blanket. When she was securely wrapped, Mammy lifted the girl and placed her in Rhett's arms.

His breath caught as he stared into the face of his new daughter. It seemed a more narrow face than Bonnie had had, longer or just pointier in the chin. In addition to the unusual abundance of hair on her head, like her sister this baby also had strong black eyebrows and thick lashes. She was calming now, and he could look into her narrow eyes. They were grayish blue, and he wondered if they would be bright like Bonnie's, or turn dark like his own, or if he would at last be blessed with a baby with Scarlett's own fascinating pure green. The small rosebud mouth was just like Bonnie's.

Rhett swallowed around the lump in his throat. Scarlett, for all her threats and bitterness during her previous pregnancy, had said - and _done_ \- nothing against this one. Scarlett had given him another daughter. He grinned suddenly, a flashy pirate's grin. And how did the woman in question feel about another little girl, not the son of which she had been so sure?

Cradling the tiny newborn - she would fit easily in his palms, but he held her securely against his chest - Rhett went to his wife's bedside. The doctor was packing up a small black bag on a table next to the bed.

"Your wife and daughter are perfectly healthy, Mr. Butler," the doctor informed him as he clasped the bag shut. "I am told the whole household is an experienced hand with childbirth and your Mammy there is more than capable of seeing to Mrs. Butler's needs. Is there anything more you need from me?"

"Thank you, Doctor." He had already forgotten the man's name. "If Will knows where to find you, I think we will be just fine here."

"Very well," the doctor said. "At your service, sir."

Rhett nodded, plainly dismissing the man. One pointed glance around the room was enough to clear everyone out, even nosy Suellen. Mammy, to make the point that leaving was her own choice, said, "I'll go down and see to the children's supper now, Mist'Rhett. You an' Miss Scarlett jus call if you need anything. Lou'll bring a tray in a bit."

"Thank you, Mammy," he replied, indulging her need to maintain an appearance of authority and autonomy.

When the room was empty, Rhett lowered his arms so he could look down into the newborn face of his daughter. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes caught Scarlett's. Whether she had been truly asleep or just pretending so as not to be bothered, she was alert now. A familiar thrill of fear tickled the back of his neck - just how much might his unguarded expression have given away?

"May I sit down?" he murmured.

Scarlett nodded.

Gingerly, trying to disturb the feather tick as little as he possibly could, Rhett lowered himself to sit beside her. Although his weight depressed the mattress, he moved slowly enough that it did not jostle Scarlett much.

For several minutes they both sat in silence, awkwardly sharing the moments of first acquaintance with their new daughter.

"She'll have hair like yours," Rhett said at last. "It's sticking up just like straw - and straight as, as well."

Scarlett did not answer, although she smoothed one hand along the baby's thick fuzz.

"Cat got your tongue, my pet?" Rhett asked, but the lighthearted impulse failed quickly under a burgeoning fear. "Are you happy about the baby, Scarlett? You said - back in October - that you wanted this baby…"

He saw Scarlett's throat work in a swallow. "Yes, Rhett. Yes, I suppose I am happy."

Suppose? What the hell did she mean by that? "Did you really want a boy so badly? You know I don't care about a son. Don't listen to Mammy."

Scarlett smiled. "I thought it would be a boy. But she is beautiful, isn't she, Rhett?"

"She's the prettiest girl in this house," he said swiftly.

Scarlett smiled, but it failed to reach her eyes. "Of course she is," she said softly, and he knew he had said the wrong thing but for the life of him, he could not put his finger on why. Probably it was just the imagined slight to her own vanity, but to provoke sadness - instead of irritation - did not fit with his understanding of his wife. What he had long thought to be his _perfect_ understanding.

Her next words wiped this unsettled question from his mind. "Let me hold her, Rhett," Scarlett said, her voice stronger now, almost her imperious self again. His jaw very nearly dropped at the request. She had never expressed a desire to hold Bonnie. The first time he had seen their daughter in her arms, Mammy had given her the infant to be fed and he had been shooed out of the room almost immediately. But those first moments, after Mammy had placed the newborn Bonnie in his own arms, she had merely watched. It hadn't fully registered with him at the time; he had been too enamored of the new arrival to notice, or to think to offer the baby to her mother; but the action - or rather, inaction - had stuck with him. It had made it even easier to encourage Bonnie's one-sided attachment to himself. After all, her mother hadn't been interested in her from the very beginning. Really, it made it seem like he was doing Scarlett a favor, saving her from the chore of child-rearing for which she clearly possessed not the slightest interest.

"She's my baby, too," Scarlett said, the annoyance in her voice letting him know he had been frozen by her unexpected request for too long. He did not take the bait, but carefully transferred the newborn to Scarlett. He braced his right hand on the mattress on the other side of her lap so he could lean over and look in their daughter's small pink face.

A slight tremble in Scarlett's fingers made her movements seem hesitant as she brushed a hand over the thick soft hair, and stroked a fingertip down one pink cheek. Rhett turned his attention from the baby to the mother, ducking his head and leaning away so he could look her in the eyes. Her eyes were wide, turbulent, and a faint crease puckered the skin between her brows. He was still not sure how to read her. Anything he might have expected from her - disinterest, disdain, blatant misery even - was curiously absent.

"I suppose you have your Princess Alexandra, my dear, unless you have changed your mind."

"No, I haven't changed my mind."

"Perhaps we should send for Miss Melly before we decide?"

"Whatever for, Rhett?"

Rhett chuckled. "Because, my darling, do you even remember Bonnie's given name? Miss Melly might have another name to stick to this child, and we could skip the step of picking one which shall never be used."

Scarlett stuck her tongue out.

"Tut, tut, my pet. You must set a better example for your daughter."

"Oh don't tease me now, Rhett," Scarlett chided. She shifted the small burden of Alexandra in her arms. "Be nice."

"Very well. I shall be nice. I suppose you have earned it, at least for today."

"I'm hungry."

Rhett chuckled. "Of course you are. I'm sure Lou will have your tray up here shortly."

Scarlett relaxed against her pillows, lifting Alexandra a little higher on her chest. She closed her eyes. Rhett felt dismissed.

"Here," he said quietly, "give her to me and get some rest. I'll go check on that tray."

Scarlett hummed an affirmative reply and relinquished the baby to his arms. Rhett slid off the bed and stooped to place the infant in the handmade cradle Will had given them just that morning. It was far less elaborate than the bassinet that had been Bonnie's, still in Atlanta, but sturdy and safe.

He was opening the door when Scarlett spoke.

"Merry Christmas, Rhett."

Rhett paused in the doorway and turned his head. "Merry Christmas, honey," he said, unintentionally brusque. As he shut the door behind him, he blinked his eyes rapidly to clear the moisture that had gathered in their corners.

* * *

 _A/N: Christmas miracles indeed! Thank you all for the reviews! Sorry to Scarlett and all who hoped for her to get her boy. I think another girl should help keep them from going back to their separate corners - each with their own mini-me of the other - how messed up that would be. The baby is named after Princess Alexandra, who seemed a likely namesake in light of Bonnie's given name. I imagine Scarlett liked the glamour and elegance of a royal name. And while she wasn't one for novel reading, she did at least read Harper's Weekly, so probably other lady's magazines as well and Princess Alexandra was quite a popular figure._


	13. Chapter 13

**Part III - Atlanta**

"I want to talk to you."

He felt cold all over. He knew those words; they presaged nothing good. He could hear the muffled sounds of the children playing in the nursery down the hall, and strained his ears to pick out the voices of his children from the audio tumult.

"Rhett, I've decided that I don't want any more children."

Did he have to respond? He had no desire to repeat this scene. He had thought that they had come so far since the baby was born - but he had had these same thoughts before and been disappointed.

Outside the window, the world was dark.

"You know what I mean?"

These months would fade. He heard laughter from the nursery, and the empty threat of divorce died on his chapped lips.

"I know what you mean. My apologies for having disturbed you with my carnal lusts."

"I shall lock my door every night."

"You needn't bother." His voice was hoarse. The uncaring wall he had shown her the first time she had initiated this conversation was failing.

"If you were a gentleman like Ashley..."

"I won't darken your doorstep again."

He would not look at her. He left the pink nightmare of that bedroom, escaping into the oppressive darkness of the upper hall. She had her sanctuary, he would have his. The little fool could have Ashley, and may God damn her cheating soul for the love she wasted on a dream. He had his children, her unwilling gifts to him. As long as he had them, everything wasn't over. They welcomed the love his wife did not want, and what's more, what she never had done and, he was beginning to accept, never would do - they loved him in return.

The red carpeting of the hall stretched away into darkness. He could not see the end of it. The nursery was only steps away, and the light sounds of the children's laughter filled the hall. He stepped in that direction. One step, another, five more. Only the steep high walls rose on either side of him, covered in dark paper and those hideous steel engravings that warped the weak light from the gas lamps. He heard giggling now, and high-pitched voices calling his name - "Daddy! Daddy!"

There was a spot of light up ahead. The nursery door had opened, spilling warmth into the garish hall. "Daddy!" they called again, and he could hear Wade and Ella, too, asking for "Uncle Rhett." In a visceral way, he despised Charles Hamilton and Frank Kennedy almost as much as he hated Ashley Wilkes, but Wade and Ella were her children, too. He loved them as parts of her, cared for them as his own not because they had never known their own fathers but because they were easy to love, because they, too, eagerly accepted the love their mother refused.

But the nursery door came no closer. He had been walking for minutes, what felt like an eternity, and the hallway still spread before him unchanged. No more than five feet to the open door, and an endless distance beyond that receding into undifferentiated black. The house of hell he had let her build was finally showing its true nature, revealing itself to be a perverse trickster capable of anything. His children were in the nursery, haven, refuge; he only had to reach the nursery. Each step brought him closer to that warmth; each step took him farther away.

He was growing colder now, the chill that had swept through his limbs back in their bedroom gaining solid icy strength. It was stiffening his limbs. He could no longer curl his fingers. His steps grew limping, his knees refusing to bend. If he could not reach the nursery, he would freeze to death out here in the hall. Rhett strained against invisible barriers, nearly panting from the futile exertion. He threw his shoulders forward with no effect, tried again—

Rhett's eyes snapped open as he lunged upright. He was alone in their bed, the sheets thrown off. The bitter cold fell away; in truth he was drenched with perspiration and only slightly chilled from the air on his clammy skin. Rhett braced his trembling forearms above his knees and dropped his head, struggling to draw air in through the tightness in his chest and still his shaking. He rubbed his cheek against his bicep, feeling the scratch of stubble and the slickness of sweat, and stifled a groan against the muscle.

Unlike some of his nightmares, tonight's had been far too realistic. In a way, the cold had saved him, turned memory-as-dream into the distorted reality of a nightmare. But was it memory - or premonition? They were returning to Atlanta in the morning, to that house where his bedroom and her bedroom were not one and the same. Was there any reason to hope that might change? There was a new amicability between them of late, but its genesis lay in the forced intimacy of Tara.

His subconscious could go straight to hell. He did not need this plague of dreams reminding him of all that might be lost when they returned to Atlanta, after the baby came. Back to their separate rooms, connected but not united by their children, and she free again to pine for her untouchable lover while he took empty physical comfort in a whorehouse.

They had not discussed their return home beyond setting the date and making the travel arrangements. He had sent word to Melanie Wilkes and secured her assistance in reopening the house. But Scarlett had not brought up the subject of sleeping arrangements, and he, cowardly, had ignored the pending crisis.

There was Bonnie to consider, as well. If he was returning to his own bedroom, then of course Bonnie would have her little bed next to his own. That at least would be simple. But if Scarlett did open her door - would Bonnie be as amenable to the nursery in Atlanta as she had finally adapted to be at Tara?

He had been a fool to put off these conversations with Scarlett. If they had discussed matters at Tara, the proximity of her family would have forestalled a violent argument. In Atlanta, she might feel less restrained. Any attempt at civil discourse could be quickly derailed if her temper flared.

But where was Scarlett? Rhett swept a hand over the empty bed but could find no lingering warmth. He reached for his dressing robe and tied it around his waist as he stood. He chafed his upper arms briefly, then slipped out into the hall and almost collided with his wife.

Scarlett gasped and took a step backward. Automatically, he thrust out his arms and cupped her elbows to steady her and the bundle she clutched to her chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked gruffly.

"We couldn't sleep," she whispered.

"We?" Rhett arched an eyebrow at her, though the gesture probably went unnoticed in the darkened hall.

"Yes, we," Scarlett answered with a tight, familiar tone. Memory could supply the details shrouded by darkness, the proudly lifted chin, the lips pursed in irritation. "She didn't want to go back to sleep after - well—" Rhett grinned as she stumbled over her words. Even on her fourth child, Scarlett was primly reticent about such natural matters as breastfeeding. It was something one did, but never something one discussed. "—and I couldn't sleep, either, so we've just been walking the hall for a while. I remember - I think I remember Mother doing the same thing with Carreen. I thought it might help."

"And did it?" he asked gently.

"She's asleep now," Scarlett answered, lowering her arms until they could both look down on their daughter's tranquil face. The rosebud lips were slightly open, and her eyelashes lay like black fringe on pale cheeks. Rhett bent down and brushed a feathery kiss over the thick, straight fuzz of hair on the baby's head.

"Don't wake her!" Scarlett hissed.

"I won't," he whispered as he stood slowly, keeping his face close to hers. He drank in her features as his eyes traversed them, from her sharp chin to her generous mouth, the fine straight lines of her nose, her eyes - wide, perhaps surprised, and emerald dark in the shadowed hall.

"I need to put her back to bed," Scarlett said, sounding as if her mouth had gone dry.

"Let me." Smoothly, he slipped the baby from her arms before she could protest. Scarlett hovered by his elbow as they went back into their bedroom. He bent over the cradle Will had given them, settling Alexandra in the soft bedding.

When he stood, it seemed the most natural thing to slip his arm about Scarlett's waist. She held herself stiffly for a breath, then he felt the light pressure of her head against his chest. Her fingertips traced the edge of the cradle and set it to rocking with a gentle push. Rhett's palm was flat on the lingering swell of her belly. He knew she hated the physical effects of childbearing. He wished he could show her how he saw her, how the lush changes of fertility only made her more beautiful to him. He wished it would matter if he could.

"Let's go to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day." Scarlett nodded, her head brushing against his chest. He could smell her fragrant hair. Bending his neck just slightly, he could brush his lips across her hair, more softly than she should be able to feel. Scarlett shifted her weight and her hip bumped against his thigh. How close she was, how warm, how easy it would be to turn her around in his arms and press his lips to hers. But the tepid friendliness between them was not enough to make that gamble seem a worthy risk.

Reluctantly, Rhett unwrapped his arm and stepped away. He saw Scarlett press her hands against her abdomen. His lips twisted. No doubt she was only regretting what she saw as the distortion of her body, unable even to feel wonder at the amazing gift of their daughter's life. But unlike with Bonnie, how could he blame her? She hadn't wanted any more children. She had locked him out of her bed for years. He had taken what was not freely given, no matter how willing she had seemed.

Tomorrow they would be back on opposite sides of that locked door.

Rhett jerked at the knotted sash of his dressing gown as he moved away around the bed. He might as well try to sleep the rest of the night. It would be a long day. The journey between Jonesboro and Atlanta wasn't that long by train, but with four children, including Bonnie's untrammeled energy and a month-old baby, and a mountain of luggage to manage, it would not be an easy trip. Scarlett had moved much of her, Wade's, and Ella's wardrobes to Tara. He had bought Bonnie almost an entire new wardrobe in Charleston which had come with them when they passed through Atlanta. And his own indulgence at Christmas time had only increased the number of their belongings which had to return with them. They would need the assistance of a small army of porters to load and unload everything.

Rhett lay on his back, feeling the mattress roll as Scarlett lay down beside him. This might be his last night sharing her bed, not that lying stiff as strangers next to each other was any more satisfactory than their arrangement in Atlanta. Maybe this would be one of those infrequent times when he woke in the morning tangled around her.

"Good night, Rhett," she whispered over her shoulder.

"Good night," he returned, keeping his voice as bland as he could.

Rhett's sleep was fitful, easily disturbed though not plagued by any further nightmares. But when he woke for the day, Scarlett was already up, a late reversal of their usual roles precipitated by the needs of their newborn daughter. He dressed in a hurry. He paused at the bedroom door to look around at the simple room, the light-colored walls taking even the weak winter light and magnifying it, making the room appear warm and brightly lit. The cradle was still positioned by her side of the bed and he crossed to it, hefted it onto his shoulder, and took it with him as he went out into the hall.

...

The train rolled through a bleak winter countryside. Bonnie, emerging victorious from a brief physical squabble with Ella over the right to look out the window from the most coveted perch on Rhett's lap, had long since fallen asleep. Her tousled head was heavy on Rhett's arm. Ella was curled against his other side, awkwardly craning her neck for a view. Wade's own seat by the window opposite had gone uncontested, lacking as it did proximity to Rhett.

Scarlett, next to her son, had ignored the boy completely, so wrapped up was she in the small burden of Alexandra on her lap. The baby, now swathed in a green knitted blanket, had hardly left her mother's arms since she was born. This turn of events had surprised everyone, though Scarlett seemed oblivious to their astonishment. Rhett could scarcely remember her taking any interest even in Bonnie. As long as she had met that need only she could provide, Scarlett had been only too happy to foist the baby off on others. On Mammy's care, on Rhett's attention, on Melanie's affection. And so even in her infancy, Rhett had drawn Bonnie's love solely to himself.

For reasons Rhett could hardly begin to guess, Scarlett's attitude towards the new baby was undeniably maternal. She was constantly engrossed in the infant, but where his own attention to Bonnie had been designed from the beginning to shut out his wife, Scarlett shared. Every expression the infant made delighted her, and she was constantly calling Rhett to her side to marvel over the appearance of a smile, the wrinkle in her nose when the baby yawned, the strength in her tiny fingers. Engrossed in the newborn, Scarlett looked as delighted as a certain young woman opening a brand new bonnet from Paris in the midst of wartime deprivation. It was both charming and unsettling, as Rhett could not help but wonder when the shoe would drop.

It did help that Alexandra had thus far been an extremely placid child. She hardly cried, and her needs were met so quickly by Scarlett or Mammy that any outburst did not last long. If she had been colicky or distempered, Rhett doubted Scarlett's patience would have endured. Even the frequent nighttime feedings did not seem to drain her as they had with Bonnie. Rhett wondered if her sleep had been that disturbed in recent months, more so than he had realized. Perhaps she was simply used to being up at all hours of the night. Or perhaps there was no reason at all beyond the novelty of the new baby, something that would fade eventually. As an explanation, that was unsatisfactory. What difference could there be between the birth of Bonnie and that of Alexandra? None that went beneath the surface of things - one child born at Tara, one in Atlanta - or that could account for such apparent happiness. Given the event of Alexandra's conception, Scarlett's response to the newborn was inexplicable - and endearing, and hopeful, and maddening. It was a mystery to Rhett, confounding him as nothing Scarlett had previously done, and he was more unsettled than he cared to admit to anyone - even to himself.

The most frustrating part of all was that her behavior with this child made him question much of the last three years. Would Scarlett have warmed to their firstborn daughter like this if he had not begun, almost from the very day of Bonnie's birth, to shut the mother out of their relationship? Rhett found himself reliving the weeks and months of Bonnie's infancy, unable to determine if Scarlett's distance and irritation could have been entirely prevented by some word or action on his part. He had even wondered if his ejection from their marital bed could have been his fault as much as hers. As soon as that thought had surfaced, he had dismissed it. She had sacrificed him at the altar of her obsession with Ashley Wilkes. That had been her decision, and hers alone. To even begin to think that he had played a part in his own demise was foolish. He was so befuddled by her recent actions he could no longer think clearly.

Scarlett lifted her head and their eyes met across the narrow train car. Caught staring, Rhett let his facial muscles relax until he was confident only the practiced mask of bland indifference would show in his demeanor. He must have been staring at her too intensely, for as his face changed so did hers. The small happy smile slipped, and she looked troubled, and very, very young. The vulnerable moment passed quickly. Scarlett's face hardened, the corners of her jaw tightening almost imperceptibly as her chin lifted proudly. He noticed that her arms moved as well, shifting the baby a little bit closer, a little bit higher in her lap.

Bonnie tried to roll over in his lap, and one chubby palm smacked him on the chin. The impact was negligible; Rhett grunted in surprise and directed his attention downward, helping guide Bonnie's limbs as she sleepily rearranged them to a more comfortable position.

Rhett rubbed his chin ruefully once Bonnie was settled, and looked up again at his wife. Her eyes sparkled and she was biting her lip, trying to stifle soft laughter. Her dark green dress and lighter bonnet only enhanced the shimmering color of her eyes and set off the flush in her pale cheeks. Even at the end of her pregnancy, Scarlett hadn't been plump anywhere but her belly, but there had been, and still was, a gentle softness to her face and figure. So many years removed from that day at the jail, it still made a shocking contrast to the starved cat of a woman she had been then.

"It is a cruel wife indeed," Rhett murmured just loud enough to be heard above the noise of the train, "who laughs at the misfortunes of her husband."

A faint crease appeared between her eyebrows as Rhett watched her struggle to decide if he was teasing or if his lightly spoken words hid a more serious insult. In the end, Scarlett only shrugged and turned her head to the window. Wade lifted wide, hopeful eyes from the book open across his lap, but Scarlett took no notice.

When she again bent her head over the baby in her lap, that troubled pucker still marred her forehead.


	14. Chapter 14

"For Heaven's sake! Mammy! Mammy, get that girl back up here. This is a mess - and tell Pork I need to speak with him..."

Scarlett's voice faded into background noise as she crossed outside the open nursery door. Wade and Ella, who had both turned still as statues at the first note of their mother's outburst, gradually relaxed and returned their attentions to their own pursuits. Wade was carefully organizing his bookshelf, making sure the new volumes he had received at Christmas were stowed in just the right manner. Ella and Bonnie were busy with their dolls, a collection which had multiplied extravagantly now that their Christmas gifts were joined with the toys left in Atlanta. Bonnie, blissfully unaffected by her mother's ire, scolded Ella for her momentary lapse in attention.

Rhett lounged in a chair by Bonnie's old crib, newly restored to the nursery for Alexandra. The baby was dozing in his arms, her small fists opening and closing against her chin at slow intervals. Blank-faced, he watched the doorway until the trailing hem of Scarlett's skirt disappeared.

He had scarcely seen Scarlett in the hours since their return to Peachtree Street. She had kept herself busy directing the disposition of their luggage and supervising the staff in cleaning wherever she thought the first attempt had not been sufficient. Rhett had made sure Mammy knew that Scarlett was not to leave the house; if her eyes began to so much as twinkle with the inkling of an idea to go out and see to the store or the mills, he would be informed and he would put his foot down. It was too soon; for her health and his own peace of mind.

"Daddy," Bonnie said, putting her hands on his knee in a very serious manner. "Where's my bed?"

Rhett smiled. "It's in our room, Bonnie. Don't you remember?"

"But where does Sissy sleep?"

"Alexandra?"

Bonnie wrinkled her nose. Thus far the addition of the new family member hadn't seemed to trouble Bonnie, if only because she entirely ignored the baby. "No," she said firmly. "Sissy."

"Ella? Ella and Wade sleep here, in the nursery."

"And Bonnie."

"You want to sleep in the nursery?"

Bonnie nodded and Rhett sat back against the chair. _Well I'll be damned_ , he thought.

"You can't have your lamp in here, Bonnie. Wade and Ella don't sleep with a light on."

Bonnie's round face became very solemn and serious. "Yes, Daddy."

"You slept in the nursery at Tara but you don't have to here, darling. Lou isn't here to sit with you, either."

"Sissy here," Bonnie answered, patting Rhett's knee as if she was trying to reassure him. Him! Well perhaps he needed it. This separation was inevitable, and yet...he had never expected it to come so soon. He could fight this; a contest of wills with a two year old - even one as stubborn as his daughter - hardly posed a challenge, but he knew Bonnie's return to the nursery would be better for the entire household. He should at least let her try. If her nightmares became too disruptive again, it would be a small matter to return her bed to his own room. Or perhaps, he mocked himself, his wife would welcome him into _their_ room again.

Rhett assumed not. She had directed the servants as their luggage was unloaded and unpacked. He knew his trunk was in his old bedroom. Now that it was no longer necessary to put on a connubial façade for her sister, she clearly had no desire for his company. The brief hope he had entertained that they might be at the beginning of something better was dead before it had taken root.

"If that's what you want, darling," Rhett said, leaning down to kiss her rumpled curls, carefully curving his chest around Alexandra. At least he had his daughters. Two beautiful little girls, each in their own way a perfect reflection of their mother. With that one crucial difference: they wanted his love, and loved him in return. Looking down into Alexandra's tiny face, he was reassured that whatever the future of his marriage, at least Scarlett had given him this last, precious gift.

Bonnie gleefully clapped her hands together, cheering. "Get Bonnie's bed!" she ordered her father. He laughed.

"It's not nearly bedtime yet, Bonnie. I promise, you'll have a place to sleep before it's that time."

Bonnie tilted her head to one side as she considered his words. "Promise?" she queried.

"Yes, I promise."

With a wide smile, Bonnie accepted his answer and trotted back to where Ella was setting out her tea set. Rhett watched her, but before he could slip back into somber reflection, Mammy appeared at the doorway.

"Mist'Rhett, Miss Scarlett's lookin' for dat baby."

"I'll take her, Mammy. Will you stay with the children?"

"Yes, suh, I can do that."

"Thank you, Mammy," Rhett said, carefully polite and respectful as always of Mammy's authority in the household.

Rhett found Scarlett in her bedroom. She had changed out of her traveling clothes, although instead of dressing early for supper she had on a more comfortable wrapper. Satin frogs closed blue quilted fabric up to her chin, but the pattern on the sides and back of the dress was a riotous confusion of colors. The busy design had the effect of overwhelming her smallness. Instead of adding vigor to her presence, she seemed somehow diminished, shrinking within the overpowering decoration.

She was in a chair by the fireplace and she looked up when he entered.

"Oh," she said, sounding startled and a little breathless. "I wasn't expecting you…"

"Mammy said you were looking for Alexandra."

"Yes, I thought - she's sleeping?"

"Soundly. Do you want to wake her?"

"No...no. It can wait." Scarlett's gaze was so hot on the small bundled baby that Rhett had to smile. She was so transparent - even if he still didn't understand this new interest.

"Here," he said, placing the infant in Scarlett's arms. "I can leave you two alone."

Scarlett took the baby and did not look up. "You don't have to go," she said quietly.

"I don't intend to disturb your modesty."

"I'm not - you're not - oh! You're impossible. She's sleeping."

Rhett arched one eyebrow. "So I am welcome in the sanctuary until the princess wakes?"

"Something like that," Scarlett muttered. "Don't be ridiculous."

Rhett sat in the other chair, a delicate piece with pink cushions and every wooden inch as elaborately carved as all the other solid surfaces in the house. It was not particularly comfortable, and he observed that Scarlett had an extra pillow tucked against her side. The arm cradling Alexandra's head and upper body rested there, instead of on the narrow wooden arm of the chair.

"I have some news for you," he said, smoothly changing the subject.

"News? I thought you were in the nursery."

"I was. You might find this even more interesting than the latest gossip," he replied, keeping his tone light and his gaze sharp.

"Hmm?" Scarlett was adjusting the lace of Alexandra's collar, smoothing it just so under the baby's chin.

"Bonnie has asked to sleep in the nursery."

Scarlett's hand stilled, her palm flattening across the tiny chest. Faintly but unmistakably, the apples of her cheeks pinked. She kept her eyes on the baby. "She has?"

"Yes. Apparently, Ella's company is now far more interesting than my own. She would prefer to spend her nights with Sissy."

"Her nightmares have been much better."

And so had Scarlett's. He seemed to be the only member of the family still disturbed by his own mind. "They have," Rhett agreed. "She appears to be outgrowing them."

"Well I suppose that's convenient for you then," Scarlett muttered, fiddling again with the lace.

Rhett's eyes gleamed as he watched her bent head. "How's that, my pet?"

Scarlett clutched the baby to her chest and stood, moving away from the small seating arrangement.

"You should at least stay home a few nights. I won't send Prissy to Tara just to appease your guilt if you aren't there when Bonnie has a nightmare."

Rhett tipped his chair onto its back legs, covering his scrutiny of Scarlett's demeanor with the appearance of nonchalance. "Would it bother you so much, Mrs. Butler?"

"Of course. She screams to bring the house down. Alexandra—"

"No. I'm not talking about Bonnie." Rhett brought his chair back down to four legs. He stood and crossed the room to his wife, who halted mid-step at the foot of her bed. He crowded behind her, standing close enough to feel the give of her skirts against his legs. "Does it bother _you_ so much, _Mrs. Butler_?" he repeated, his quietude not lessening his emphasis.

"Why do you care? You'll just do what you want," Scarlett retorted, then muttered under her breath - but not quietly enough to go unheard, "You always do."

Rhett shrugged, although Scarlett could not see the gesture behind her back. "Because, I freely admit, I was - disappointed - that our sleeping arrangements at Tara won't be continued here." He paused, waiting for Scarlett's response, readying a crude retort about resuming their old intimacies should he need to retreat yet again. He played a delicate game with her; opening up with half-truths to see how she would respond, able to throw her predatory instincts off with a vulgar elaboration if she moved to attack in response. This feint-and-jab strategy had come into play much less often in recent months, but they had plateaued at a barely friendly distance marked by random moments of incipient intimacy which never came to fruition. If she would give him some sign—

"Is that all you ever think about?" Scarlett snapped, walking away out of his reach.

Rhett shoved his fists into his pockets. "Of course. I am only a low creature of carnal lust, after all." Alexandra made a small mewing noise, the precursor to a hungry cry. "It looks like my welcome here is over. Good day, my dear."

Rhett kept his hands fisted so he would resist the urge to slam her door. The sounds of children laughing and playing filtered down the hallway from the nursery. Rhett returned just in time to adjudicate a squabble over the large doll that was still Ella's most prized possession, and Bonnie's most coveted. He distracted Bonnie by sending Mammy for Pork, and together the two men moved Bonnie's small bed back to the nursery.

With three beds and a crib, the room was becoming quite crowded. It would be Wade's birthday soon; at ten years old, perhaps it was time to move the boy into his own room and turn the nursery over to the girls. If Bonnie's new sleeping arrangements lasted - or even if they didn't - it would be an apt way to mark the event.

Bonnie was delighted by the change, and the argument over the doll resolved as both girls devoted themselves to tucking the toy into the new bed, waking her for "good morning!", and putting her back to "sleep." Wade shuffled over, a new book clutched to his chest, asking Uncle Rhett to read to him. Soon all three children were crowding his lap to listen to the story. Rhett lifted his head as he turned a page and his eyes met Scarlett's in the open doorway. She stood for a moment, holding the baby - clearly she had been intending to return Alexandra to her crib.

"Uncle Rhett?" Wade asked querulously, tugging at his sleeve. Rhett glanced down to the boy for just a moment, but when he lifted his head Scarlett had gone.


	15. Chapter 15

For Bonnie's first night back in the nursery with her half-siblings, Rhett sat with his daughter until she was asleep. She didn't stir when he released her small hand and lowered it gently to rest on her plush covers. He paused at the nursery door, pulling it until it was open just a crack - enough for any cries to reach the rest of the house. Bonnie, Wade, and Ella all slept on. Alexandra would be in a bassinet in Scarlett's room for at least a few more weeks.

"I want to talk to you," Scarlett said, her brusque voice the first, abrupt indication of her presence by the nursery door. Rhett tensed. This was too familiar, too much like the memory he still relived in dreams. Rhett raked his eyes over her, purposefully crude as he traced her form from hem to crown. She blushed.

"Of course," he answered blandly. "Should we go down to the parlor?"

"All right."

Rhett took a seat on one of her hideously slick sofas. He was reaching inside his coat pocket for a cigar, but Scarlett's opening words stopped him cold.

"We need to set a date for Alexandra's christening."

Rhett almost choked. "Of course," he managed to murmur.

Scarlett was surprising him yet again, upending his expectations with regard to their new daughter by suggesting they have Alexandra christened. Rhett knew she had not willingly set foot in a church in years - not since Bonnie's own christening. He had put the idea in her head for Bonnie; left alone, with Scarlett's lack of interest in the child, he assumed she never would have been baptized and he had expected the same with Alexandra. Scarlett's apparent enthusiasm for their new daughter aside, her enthusiasm for the church was still notably lacking.

But christened Alexandra should be, and of course Melanie and Ashley would be invited to the reception. Scarlett, with an earnestness that beguiled him even more, was asking, "But Rhett, who will be her godparents? I had thought to ask Sue and Will, but Sue won't be able to come out from Tara for ever so long. It could be months before she can leave, and if we wait too long, it'll be time for the planting and then Will won't want to come and - oh, Rhett, I don't know. What...what do you think?"

"Why don't we ask my sister," he found himself saying. The idea had a sort of logic; Melanie and Ashley were Bonnie's godparents, a distasteful arrangement he had not been able to turn aside at the time without appearing suspicious. And Melanie was like a sister to Scarlett, at least in name; it made sense for the new child to have a sponsor from his side of the family. It made more sense than Suellen, who completely lacked the social standing generally considered attractive in these arrangements. Melanie had that genteel clout, but the Wilkeses were still poor. As were most of the "right sort of people," these days, but Rosemary had married well and had money of her own should she need it, thanks to himself.

"Your sister? You haven't mentioned her in years. I suppose you saw her in Charleston," Scarlett answered, unmistakable bitterness clipping her words.

"Yes," Rhett answered without elaboration.

After a moment, Scarlett continued. "Very well. Will you write to her?"

"I will. And what should I say? Have you set a date for this hallowed event?"

Scarlett's black brows drew together in a crisp frown and she drew herself up as if preparing for a vituperative retort; but no bitter words were forthcoming and after a moment, she sat back, pressing herself in to the opposite corner of the couch.

"Do you think two weeks is enough time? For your sister to make plans, I mean."

"I'm sure that will be fine, if you think that's enough time to find a priest you can bribe to let you through the door."

Scarlett turned her head away. "How dare you say such things to me," she said, but her voice was quiet, each syllable full of pain instead of snapping anger. It took him aback, this reaction that showed he had landed something more than the expected glancing blow to her hard, impenetrable pride. "I shouldn't be surprised anymore, should I? I should know better." She turned suddenly, stunning him again with the shine of unshed tears in her bright eyes. "Why did you even come back from Charleston?"

"Would you rather I had stayed away - and Bonnie?"

"Of course not."

Rhett drew his palm down over his face. "I'll write to my sister."

They sat in awkward silence, the sofa stretching between them with a distance far greater than the few physical feet of empty space. Her fingers were fidgeting rapidly in her lap in an irritatingly unsure manner that made him want to grab her hands to still the silly, nervous movement.

"Stop this," he said abruptly, sliding easily across the slick seat and wrapping his hands over hers.

Scarlett looked up, the wet gleam in her eyes calling to mind that old, silly compliment he had paid her during their first dance. Twin goldfish bowls filled with clear green water, but the fish were swimming in turbulent circles now, far below the surface. His eyes sought her lips of their own accord, the pull of her nearness acting on him like a magnet.

He had given her his word - twice, now - that he would not bother her again, but suddenly the thought of her inevitable retreat behind her locked bedroom door seemed too bitter to swallow with any fortitude. He gripped her hands more tightly, subtly drawing her nearer, and lowered his head to brush his lips against her own.

Her breath warmed his lips as she sighed, her mouth soft beneath his and her hands suddenly limp in his strong grasp. The exhale parted her lips slightly and he let his tongue brush her lower lip in a tender caress. The urgency and punishing, angry eroticism of their combustible liaison in April was completely absent from the sweet hesitancy in this embrace. Rhett moved his right hand to her waist. Her corset was firm beneath his palm but the curve of her waist was shallow, still filled out by the weight she had gained during her pregnancy. He was touching her lightly when he felt her slim, cool fingers brush his neck just below his jaw. The tentative but unmistakably encouraging touch jolted him and his hand tightened as a tremor ran through his body.

Rhett groaned into her mouth as Scarlett's hand settled at the base of his neck, her fingertips just curling around his nape. Although she did not actually draw him closer, she wasn't pushing him away, and the tenderness and acceptance in her touch squeezed his heart. Sliding precariously across the sofa he moved her back until the carved wooden arm stopped her progress, slid closer until their thighs and chests pressed together. As he moved, he released her hand before their arms could get caught between them and wrapped his left arm around her waist. The right he drew slowly up her form, letting the heel of his hand just brush the curve of her heavy breasts before he buried his fingers in her thick hair, disturbing her careful coiffure beyond repair.

Scarlett broke the kiss but did not push him away. Her head fell back, pressing her skull into his palm. Her red lips were parted, her cheeks flushed to match. Rhett lowered his mouth to kiss her chin, her jaw, the lobe of her ear.

"Rhett," she murmured. There was no anger, no disgust or displeasure in her voice, but the sound was enough to penetrate the fog of lust that had compromised his higher thinking.

"Beg pardon," he replied, panting slightly, but he could not bring himself to prove the words by releasing her. If he let her go - _when_ he let her go, she would retreat up the stairs to hide in her sanctuary. In the morning they would pretend this moment had never happened, exactly as they pretended - the evidence of their newborn daughter notwithstanding - that there had been nothing between them in April. That would be safer in the long run, but he wasn't ready to concede the moment before he had to.

And then the choice was taken out of his hands when the baby began to cry. Scarlett sat up immediately, her hand flying to her rumpled hair and patting it in a futile effort to undo the damage caused by his ministrations. Silently, Rhett removed his arm from her body. She stood, then paused.

"I have to—"

"I know. Go see to Alexandra."

Still she hesitated, and her hands fluttered as if she might start fidgeting again. "Yes, I have to—" she repeated, again stopping abruptly. "Good night, Rhett," she said almost in a whisper, before departing hurriedly.

Rhett pushed himself tiredly up from the couch and followed her to the foot of the stairs. He watched her ascent, his blank eyes following her until she had reached her bedroom and shut the heavy door behind her. The baby's cries were muffled and a moment later the house was silent. Only then did Rhett begin his own slow climb up the polished flight, suddenly feeling every one of his 43 years.

Two weeks, he reflected as he dropped his cravat in a small, sinuous puddle on his own bedroom floor. He could probably keep her home that long, but after the christening there would be no reason, no convention or expectation, to keep her out of the public realm any longer. After the christening, she would go back to work - back to the temptation of private liaison with the man who was her lover in all but physical fact. He didn't know how to avoid it. She would never listen to him if he put his foot down, and if he could somehow contrive a plan to force her hand to a sale of the mills the gossiping vultures would surely see that as an admission of guilt or at the very least, suspicion and a lack of trust. Yet another scandal would be ruinous, if she hadn't learned her lesson from the last one. Maybe he could enlist Mammy's assistance. Scarlett would balk at a chaperone but if anyone could resist her wheedling and stand up to her tempers, it was her formidable old nanny.

Rhett finished disrobing and wrapped himself in a thick dressing gown before pouring a glass of whisky. He drank it at the window, looking out over the shadowed cross hatch of Atlanta at night. Looking to the north, his eyes followed the vein-like tracery of paths and new roads, one of which ran to her property, and cursed the day he had first loaned his treacherous, green-eyed vixen the cash she needed to buy those God damned sawmills. He finished the whisky with one smooth flick of his wrist and set the glass down roughly on the polished tray with the decanter. He misjudged its placement slightly and it knocked against its unused twin, the tinny clink high pitched and painful to his ears.

Before shedding his dressing gown, Rhett moved one of the pair of chairs from the seating area in front of the fireplace to a more convenient position near the door, which he opened halfway so that any sounds of distress could reach his ears from the nursery with minimal delay. With these preparations in place, he draped the robe over the back of the chair, where it would be easy to grab in the night if he needed to attend to Bonnie, and climbed nude between the cool sheets he had not lain under in months.

After sharing that undersized bed at Tara with Scarlett for the last four months, his own expansive quarters felt empty. His heart contracted and his breathing grew shallow; suddenly it was like the first time all over again, that first night alone after her rejection. Although they had hardly been intimate at Tara, they had been together, and he had done a poor job of girding himself for the inevitable return to acrimonious stalemate. He should have gone to Belle's. He had let hope master him when he should have known better. But she hadn't pushed him away. Unless he had truly lost his touch, he knew she hadn't been eager to leave his company.

Two weeks. He would give her two weeks.

 **...**

She was lithe and live under his hands, smooth skin that flushed at his touch. He hadn't touched her in so long - too long - this drought of years that had only been exacerbated by one night, a bitter oasis. He couldn't stop touching her. How had he ever stopped? He kissed her shoulder, her neck, kissed smooth skin untouched by sunlight and hands that had once been as calloused as his own.

And she kissed him back. Her mouth was tentative, tender. Her hands were hot on his shoulders, his chest, on his back as they held him close. He buried his face in her black, fragrant hair and groaned her name, "Scarlett."

"Ashley," she whispered, the words sinking into his heart like cobra's fangs.

He should have known. Such passion, such tender feeling, had never been for him. It was inevitable. He could hear the brisk ticking of the clock, keeping a nauseating rhythm that knocked in his brain with the force of a hammer. He had her body for two weeks before her heart flew again to her lover.

With the first stirrings of hurt and rage, Rhett lunged and swiped his arm over the table by his bed, knocking the carriage clock to the floor in a cacophony of protesting wood and metal that shattered the dream. For a stunned moment, he peered over the side of the bed at the mess on the floor, then dropped his head with a groan. After a few deep breaths, his heart was still racing. He shucked off the bedsheets, now damp with perspiration, and rose. Clothing himself with the dressing gown he had left on the chair, he slipped out into the hall.

The air in the wide, dark hall felt cooler than it had in his bedroom. He paused, listening, but the house was silent. With the thick carpets, heavy drapes, and dense wood furniture, even the usual sounds of a home often seemed to be absent. The plush materials muffled everything - the house swallowed sound. Nothing rattled or shifted in the night. There wasn't even any evidence of the cats in residence.

Still, it would help calm him to check on Bonnie. The nursery was as dark as the rest of the house, but it was obvious as soon as he slipped through the partially open door that nothing was amiss. If he strained his ears, he could hear the even breathing of the three children. Moving soundlessly, light on his feet despite his size, Rhett crossed the room to kneel by Bonnie's transplanted bed. As he matched his breathing to hers, his heartbeat finally began to slow. He lingered a moment, studying her small features. With her eyes closed, Bonnie looked even more like her mother - allowing the shape of her face to be read without the un-Scarlett blue eyes. Her curls, though, were utterly unlike his wife's long, straight hair. With a feathery lightness, Rhett brushed one hand over the tangled locks. Bonnie rolled over, turning her face away from him.

He took a moment to lean over both Wade and Ella, kissing his stepdaughter's lighter curls and briefly resting a hand on Wade's back. Returned to calm by the reassuring order and rightness of the sleeping children, Rhett slipped back into the hall.

Past the stairs he hesitated, seized by a desire to check on his youngest daughter. With the destruction of the clock he was unsure of the time, but surely it was late enough that Scarlett would be asleep. He could probably sneak in without her being any the wiser - _if_ , he remembered, if the door was unlocked. Would she lock it, with the baby in with her? Had she ever actually done so? He had never bothered to check, too cowardly to find out the truth.

The knob was cold and sharp in his palm, but it turned soundlessly and the door swung smoothly over the carpet.

Feeling like the proverbial thief in the night, Rhett eased through the open door into his wife's bedroom. It was the largest of the bedrooms, excepting the playroom hybrid that comprised the nursery. The bed was made to fit the scale of the room and Scarlett's slim form made only a slight ripple under the heavy covers. He could see the black of her hair fanned out on the pillows and draped, rippling, over her shoulders and back.

The bassinet was as overdone as Scarlett's most garish gowns, frothy with lace and loops of ribbon. The delicate white chantilly glowed brightly in the dim room. Rhett bent low over the oval where Alexandra lay sleeping. Of course, she was fine. The baby's breath was so quiet Rhett could barely hear each exhale, and he placed the backs of his fingers lightly against her chest to feel the reassuring rhythm of its rise and fall. She stirred in her sleep and he removed his hand, reluctant to break the connection but leery of waking her - and likely, in turn, waking Scarlett.

Scarlett. She hadn't stirred since he had breached the confines of this hushed sanctuary. Emboldened by her stillness, Rhett padded silently across the thick carpet to stand by the bed. This close, he could see her face above the scalloped hem of the coverlet. Her mouth was slack with sleep, the shapely lips parted slightly. The moonlight enhanced the luminous quality of her pale skin.

His hungry eyes drank her in with an open gaze that he could not allow himself under her conscious scrutiny. When he looked at her, he had to carefully control his thoughts and expressions, projecting disinterest or exaggerated lascivious mockery. As she slept, he let his eyes worship her. The square corners of her jaw, relaxed, only the shape hinting at its usual stubborn set. The proud line of her nose and her high cheekbones, the tempting softness of the delicate shell of her ear. Her black lashes cast a sooty shadow on her cheek, their heavy curtain safely hiding those piercing, glorious, tempting green eyes.

Scarlett stirred, breaking the spell of his reverie and Rhett stepped back, turning to go. He heard the whisper of fine cotton moving together as she rolled over. The doorknob was again cool under his palm when she spoke.

"Rhett?"

Her voice was sleepy and small, uncertain and surprisingly melancholy. He froze, half turning in the direction of the bed.

"I was just checking on the baby," he said quietly.

"Oh."

"Good night."

"Wait." Midstep, he froze, his palm convulsing on the faceted knob. Her voice was reedy, strained as if drawn out against her will through vocal cords that fought to keep quiet, constricting free speech. The impression of words forced out through choking barriers was strengthened by the brittle, strained syllables she spoke. "You don't have to—", a heavy breath, and then almost inaudibly, "stay?"

The single world galvanized him. In an instant, he was returned to her bedside. "Are you all right?" he murmured, thinking of the dreams that had relented by the end of their stay at Tara.

Scarlett nodded, and as if he could see the thoughts plainly written in the shining orbs of her eyes he realized he needed to act before she changed her mind. Already she was rethinking that vulnerable word, ready to retreat behind her hard, prideful shell and forget the exchange. But before she could draw that curtain, he saw her clearly, and was sure that she, too, had been missing the quiet communion of their shared bed.

Rhett touched his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence, then moved around to other side of the bed. His hand went to the knotted sash around his waist, then he dropped it, sure she would balk at his intentions if he tried to join her in the nude - and unsure of his own limits with so few barriers between them.

He slid between the covers, the unused side of the bed cool on the bare skin of his calves. Scarlett lay stiffly at first, staring up at the ceiling, but after a moment she rolled over to look at him.

"Why were you up? Did Bonnie have a nightmare? I didn't hear her—"

"Er, no, Bonnie is sleeping soundly. I fear I'm the one who had difficulty sleeping tonight."

"Oh?" Scarlett breathed.

With a self-deprecating grin, Rhett slipped one arm under her neck and slid it down to grasp her back so he could pull her closer. "It seems I'm not adjusting nearly as well as Bonnie to the new sleeping arrangements," he said as she tucked her head against his chest.

Two weeks. It would have to be enough. She should be recovered, physically, by then. If the platonic intimacy they had shared these last months was not enough to restore their conjugal relationship, if she returned instead to her moonlight dreams of Ashley Wilkes, he would freeze the last corners of his heart that yearned for her and move on. With their two daughters, he couldn't yet leave her, but perhaps when Alexandra was older—

That was a cold and bitter thought when her body was so welcoming against his, her softness curled against him and her hand resting just over his heartbeat. He knew this woman better than anyone else knew her, and he still found her unpredictable. He was reluctant to ascribe meaning to her welcome tonight when he had seemingly found himself on hopeful ground before only to have it crumble beneath him, but though battered and bruised it seemed his heart was not done with her yet.

 **...**

The first night of Bonnie's return to the nursery room had passed without incident, her recent infatuation with her older sister helping to smooth the transition as Bonnie was newly eager to emulate the tractable Ella. Though her spirit was willing, her dreams were not so malleable. On the second night, Rhett answered his daughter's frightened cry of "Daddy!" in the small hours of the morning. But even then, Bonnie was adamant that she would remain in the nursery, and Rhett realized that in addition to her burgeoning attachment to Ella she had observed and concluded that as Alexandra slept with Mother, babies slept with the adults and big children slept in the nursery. Rhett couldn't argue with her logic, which she imparted with the serious air of one educating her pitiably misinformed father.

Still, her small fist clung tightly to his fingers until she had at last fallen back to sleep. In the dark, hushed nursery Rhett sat for another half an hour, alert to the possibility that her precocious bravery might falter if her dreams returned.

Rhett finally left Bonnie's bedside, thinking it some time after two in the morning. He had passed the top of the stairs and the yawning black gap of the front hall and was nearing his own room when Scarlett's door opened and his wife stepped just over her threshold. Rhett looked at her in surprise, but was unable to see her clearly with no lamps lit in the hall.

"I'm sorry we woke you," Rhett whispered, moving close to her. "Is the baby sleeping?"

Scarlett nodded, her black hair shifting in the shadows. "She didn't wake up. Bonnie - she's still in the nursery?"

"Yes. We discussed it, but Ella offered to let Bonnie sleep with her doll and that porcelain protector is, apparently, as good a proof against nightmares as anything."

"Oh," Scarlett said.

The hall air felt warm, too warm for winter or even for spring, and heavy in a way that made it hard to breathe. Scarlett fidgeted with the cuffs of her nightdress, her eyes darting nervous glances at his face.

"Is something troubling you?" Rhett asked quietly, taking one of Scarlett's small, busy hands in both of his. "Your dreams haven't gone sour again, too?" Scarlett shook her head mutely, but did not pull away. "Alexandra is all right?" A nod. Rhett massaged her hand gently, studying the black crown of her head. The darkness revealed nothing.

They stood in the hall, suspended within a strange still moment, neither pulling away nor reaching out. In the silence, Rhett felt his senses attuning to her proximity, his nostrils flaring as they caught the scent of lemon off her hair, his palms tingling as they pressed against the soft, firm back of her hand. Even in the unlit hall, her eyes seemed to catch a spark of light from somewhere as she gazed into the middle distance past his shoulder. Fighting the urge to hold his breath, Rhett waited and wondered. She had made no sign he could interpret as welcoming him to establish a regular presence in her bed, despite their closeness the night before. Still leery of rebuff, he had not made any move to invite himself.

After a minute, the silent standoff began to feel more awkward than promising. Rhett had resolved to release her, say goodnight and retreat again behind their separate doors, when her fingers tightened around his palm as if sensing his withdrawal. Her unfocused stare sharpened, her gaze - so especially feline, the way her eyes glowed in the dim light - piercing as she met his own. Her hand gripped his firmly, but she held her silence.

Rhett took a step closer. "It's late," he whispered, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. "We should go to bed," he added, and involuntarily held his breath as he waited to see how she would choose to interpret that statement. The shadows highlighted the slight furrow that formed above her nose. She seemed to be wrestling with herself, although even as a gambling man Rhett would not have been willing to lay any bets on her body language or what it might signify. His mind was too clouded by hope.

"Rhett," she whispered, with the slightest lilt of a question as she tilted her face up to his.

When he lowered his mouth to hers, it didn't feel reckless - it felt right, the cowardly fears that he had been clinging to even as they had grown closer falling away. The scent of citrus bloomed as he moved swiftly to wrap his arms around his wife and crush her against his chest. He felt her cool fingertips against the nape of his neck as he tasted her mouth. She sighed, her breath warming his lips, her body relaxing against his as she exhaled. Her arms around his neck clasped him firmly even as she softened against him. He cupped her cheek in his palm, gently tilting her head while his lips met hers, drinking in her warmth and welcome. Her lips parted before he could press for advantage, and their tongues touched gently. The small, shocked sound she made vibrated inside his skull.

He could feel his body responding to her, the rush of blood roaring in his ears as it diverted from his brain to other, less sensible parts. The feeling was accompanied by a new sense of panic, a cold fear that was utterly unwelcome and yet necessary as it doused the passion that was in danger of carrying him away.

It was difficult to break the kiss, even more difficult when she resisted his hands as he lifted them to unhook her fingers from behind his neck. If she might feel even a fraction of the same desire as he felt, it felt foolish to throw the brake and give her time to come to her senses, but it was simply too soon. The consequences of that shattering night in April were still rippling through their lives. Literally, because the baby they had created that night and she had borne a bare month before meant that whatever was happening between them now, this freight train of physical connection had to be diverted for at least another few weeks. Figuratively, as the shame of his own actions, the fear of her response, the hurt and anger and heartbreak - those darker emotions were falling away, like a hard, black shell that was crumbling to reveal something fragile at its core.

"Rhett?" she whispered, still close enough that the air of her words riffled his mustache.

"May I?" he asked, holding his heart out, placing it underneath her feet with those two words and hoping she might try something new and unexpected, and not crush it carelessly beneath her heels. He slid his hands from hers, caressing slowly up her arms as he lowered them, when she abruptly twisted away. His next breath was ice cold in his chest but her hand came back to grab his, and then she was twining her fingers with his and pulling him gently after her into the dark bedroom.


	16. Chapter 16

Rhett had once told his wife he did not care if they had one child or twenty, but as the entire family piled into the closed carriage for the chilly ride home from church he could see there might be good reasons - other than her vanity - to take preventative action. _If she doesn't take matters into her own hands again._ Rhett shook off the dark thought, but could not shake the unsettled feeling that dogged him. After an uncertain start, they were once again sharing her bed - just as chastely as they had at Tara. After two weeks, it was trying Rhett's resolve, his patience, the limits of libido and self-restraint. His self-imposed deadline had arrived, and the uncertainty of Scarlett's next move was beginning to fester.

Scarlett, with the baby in her arms, sat across from him with Wade at her side. Bonnie, bursting with energy after the constraints of sitting through her sister's baptism, ricocheted between Rhett's lap and peering out the window with Ella. The carriage felt cramped, and seemed to grow smaller with every smooth revolution of its wheels. Still, the noisy carriage filled with children would be preferable to what was to come - an afternoon playing host to Ashley Wilkes.

Rhett had kept a careful eye on Scarlett since their return to Atlanta, hardly even going to work himself. He was certain today was the first time his wife had seen her lover since she had fled the city over the summer. There hadn't been the opportunity for them to interact much at the church, but the man might be in his house for several hours for the reception. With the intimate nature of the party - only the Butlers, Rosemary and her husband, and Scarlett's Aunt Pitty and the Wilkeses - there would be no escape from whatever was to come. Scarlett was an open book, at least to him and to anyone else without the benevolent blindness of Melanie Wilkes, or the naïveté of Pittypat. It was one of the many reasons he had heretofore never invited his family to Atlanta. The tension in his marriage would not go unnoticed by his mother or sister, nor did he expect to be able to keep his wife's emotional love affair with another man secret.

When Pork opened the carriage door, the trio of children tumbled out like a small, unruly mob of puppies. In the scramble for freedom they seemed to have doubled, if not quadrupled, their normal number of limbs. Bonnie, as usual, was heedless of any danger or difficulty posed by the relatively long drop to the ground, but Pork was as experienced as any of them in dealing with his tiny mistress - perhaps even more so given his years of managing her doppelgänger grandfather - and he adroitly nabbed her around the waist and lowered her to the gravel drive before she could fall in her haste to follow her older siblings.

Rhett followed the children out and then turned to assist Scarlett. Instead of offering her a hand, he grasped her waist firmly in both hands and lifted her and the baby she clutched to her chest, lowering her to the drive in one smooth motion. He lingered, unwilling to abandon their privacy before absolutely necessary. Winter was taking a bold rearguard action and the brisk day quickly brought a flush to her bare skin. Despite the baby in her arms - or perhaps because she had been a new, young mother when he had met her that second time in Atlanta a decade before - when she raised her eyes to meet his at last Rhett felt his throat tighten. She looked for that moment impossibly, heart-stoppingly young. She smiled at him, showing the dimples in her pink cheeks, and her unusual eyes were as green as the far-off arrival of spring. Rhett lowered his head, ready to kiss her until he heard the grind of more carriage wheels rolling over the gravel. He stopped short and pressed his lips instead to her cool forehead.

"Let's go inside before the baby catches a chill," he muttered, pulling away.

 **...**

Rhett leaned with one hip against the sideboard and took a sip from the too-sweet wine Scarlett had chosen to serve. The women were clustered together cooing over Alexandra, but Rhett was amused to note that Scarlett's lips were pressed firmly together in a telltale sign of irritation. Her love affair with the baby had shown no signs of letting up, so it was a relief to know some things hadn't changed. She might have a newfound tolerance for admiring her own baby, but it was not paired with patience for the feminine circus.

Unfortunately, the women being otherwise engaged meant he had sole responsibility for entertaining one man he hardly knew, and another he despised - even if the sentiment came more from his own discomfort and impotent rage over the unfamiliar feelings of jealousy that Ashley Wilkes inspired, than from any true care for the man himself. Wilkes was a feeble relic of a dying age, not worth the effort of any feeling or notice. Yet because of Scarlett, his own happiness had become inextricably bound up in the younger man's spineless equivocacy.

He had liked Rosemary's husband Joseph well enough in Charleston, but was in no rush to count the man a friend. He was a good catch for Rose, an offshoot of a lesser branch of the ubiquitous Manigault family with enough opportunistic good sense to eclipse some family members who had not recovered from the devastation of the war. He wasn't tarred a Scalawag, as Rhett, though Rhett privately thought his fortune had been a little _too_ good to be entirely honest; but as scruples had nearly starved his mother and sister after the surrender he much preferred that she had found someone with the demonstrated ability to keep his wits as a provider.

It was perhaps inevitable that the conversation would turn to the mills, given the company. Now that Scarlett would be ready, undoubtedly eager, to get back to running the mills herself, with the boon of their connection to Ashley Wilkes, there was scarcely a subject of which he could be less fond. He devoutly wished the piles of tinder might explode before she would have the chance.

"You mentioned Mrs. Butler had interest in a sawmill, didn't you Rhett?" his brother-in-law inquired.

"Mrs. Butler has two fine mills and two lumber yards. Mr. Wilkes here manages one of the mills."

"You don't say!" Joseph exclaimed, his eyes sparking. "They're her mills, too? Not yours?"

"I did loan her some money to get started, before we were married. But she repaid every cent. I have no interest in lumber, myself."

Ashley adjusted his balance slightly. Rhett liked to imagine he looked uncomfortable, as if Rhett's lack of interest somehow reflected poorly on his own involvement in Scarlett's little schemes.

"You don't mind, then? And didn't you say something about a store?"

"She inherited a store from her second late husband. Why should I mind? Scarlett was never meant to sit placidly at home with the children and the sewing, for all that I'm sure she grew up thinking that was what she wanted." Rhett couldn't resist looking at Wilkes from the corner of his eye. _Yes_ , he thought, _and that's what she would have had with you as a husband, and you would have both been miserable._ Why couldn't she see that for herself? "I'm not ashamed to have a smart wife," he added, "smarter than most men, for that matter." Rhett smiled openly at Wilkes before taking another sip of wine and was gratified to see a noticeable flush creeping up towards the other man's ears.

Such petty digs were amusing, but it wasn't enough to stave off the itch under his own collar. He longed for the days when his reputation had been a burden of which he was well shut, when he could use a few irreverent words to provoke outrage - he had possessed a talent for clearing a room or shutting down a social hour. If it weren't for the children, he could have had Ashley turning with his tail between his legs in minutes, and damn his reputation, instead of suffering through this awkward afternoon.

Two things happened simultaneously by which those children came to his rescue. Alexandra awoke and began to cry - _scream_ being a more accurate word - and a loud crash was heard upstairs from the vicinity of the nursery.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Melanie and Pitty both.

"Oh dear," added Melanie, patting Pitty's arm. The older woman appeared in danger of hyperventilating. "There now, Auntie, I'm sure everyone is just fine. Mammy's with them, after all. But Scarlett, darling, it has gotten late!" Melanie had to raise her normally gentle voice to be heard over Alexandra's distress. "We really should be going."

Rhett saw Scarlett's eyes begin to roll, though she managed to curtail the impatient gesture. "It's fine, Melly, truly. I'll take the baby upstairs, you can stay and visit as long as you want."

"No, dear, we wouldn't want to keep you. I'll just come with you to fetch Beau."

There was a small feminine hubbub before Scarlett and Melanie departed, leaving Pitty with her smelling salts and Rosemary. After a few more minutes, the party of five was reduced to three, Pitty and Ashley having departed with Melanie and Beau. Rhett joined his sister on the sofa beneath the front window.

"Really, Rhett," she scolded, "this furniture is ridiculous. I almost have to dig my nails in to keep my seat."

"It's what Scarlett wanted," he mumbled as he drew a cigar from an engraved case, and offered another to Joseph.

At least his sister didn't laugh at him, though the arch of her elegant black brow said plenty. With one smooth look, she imparted not only her amused judgement on his indulgence of his wife, but also a wordless rebuke on the distance he had kept between wife and family. Rosemary had had quite enough to say on that subject already, though he was sure she could find yet more to say if he gave her an opening.

"Her taste is atrocious," Rose whispered for Rhett's ears only, reaching over to squeeze his free hand. Rhett shrugged.

"Thank you both, again, for coming up for the christening."

"We were honored, Rhett. And it's about time you invited me to Atlanta. Now that you've opened the door, you'll have a hard time keeping me away from my darling nieces."

The expected response would be an open invitation, but the words stuck in his throat. It was one thing to spout the empty patterns of society talk to the Old Guard stalwarts he courted so assiduously, but quite another when it was his own sister.

"We'll come back to Charleston again soon," he said instead.

"Only if you bring your charming wife next time, brother dear," Rosemary scolded.

"Bring me where?" Scarlett asked, her dimples showing as she stepped back into the parlor.

Rosemary stood and crossed immediately to take her sister-in-law's hands. "Why, to Charleston. It was really too mean of Rhett to keep you from us."

Rhett saw the clouds in Scarlett's eyes, though her smile stayed pasted on without a tremble. Her tinkling laugh sounded brittle to his ears. "It sounds lovely, of course, but I've already been away from my businesses for so long…"

"Well, you don't have to come tomorrow! And the train ride will be just miserable in summer. But do think about coming for Christmas. Mother will want to meet Alexandra, too."

Unable to stem the irritation from Scarlett's mention of work, Rhett did not come to his wife's rescue as she mumbled a noncommittal response.

That night after supper, when Scarlett would have followed her in-laws upstairs, Rhett grasped her arm to keep her behind in the parlor. Guests be damned, he was ready to have this over with.

"Rhett?" Scarlett asked, clearly puzzled, as he pulled her back into the room then released her to draw the door shut.

"Would you like a nightcap?" he asked.

"No, thank you," she said, stiffly.

"You know I don't mind."

"I don't want a drink. I want to know what's going on."

Rhett ignored her and poured himself a glass of whisky. He took a sip before taking a seat in the sofa Rosemary had criticized that afternoon.

"Did you have a nice time today?"

"Yes," Scarlett answered slowly. "Your sister is—"

"I'm not talking about Rose. But you should know, she likes you quite a bit. I would not take it kindly if you decide to treat her as you do Miss Melly."

"I love Melly!" Scarlett protested hotly. "How—"

Rhett waved a hand and spoke over her. "Yes, I know. Though you don't have to pretend with me, my dear. But I'm only trying to say, I won't be nearly as indulgent should you find yourself _in flagrante_ with _my_ sister's husband."

"In what?"

"In an embrace such as you shared with your lover last spring. Should your affections change, that is, though for all your flaws you have been remarkably constant there."

"How - how dare - you vile - loathsome—" Scarlett sputtered, incoherently, as her face flushed bright red. She twisted about, her hands twitching as if she searched for something to throw in his face. Marooned in the center of the parlor, nothing suitable was in reach and she fisted her hands impotently. "Why are you acting like this?"

"How do you mean?"

Not looking at him, Scarlett made a quiet reply. "You haven't been this cruel in months. I thought - oh, never mind." She turned her head and pierced him with a wet glare. "If you want to accuse me of something, just get it over with. Let me defend myself, this time. Otherwise I'm going to bed."

"I assume you'll be ready to return to work now," Rhett replied instead. Nerves, anger, and disappointment had created a headier intoxication than any whisky, and with effort he remastered his demeanor to stony indifference.

"I hadn't thought about it."

"Don't lie to me, Scarlett. You know I can't stand it."

"Why would I be lying? Isn't that more in your line?"

Rhett sharpened his gaze on the slim profile of his wife. What the hell did she mean by that?

"I wouldn't start to cast stones there, my pet. But I don't believe that you haven't been counting down the days until you could go back out into the world."

"Well, yes," she confessed. "Yes, I want to go back to work. As much as I - well, I can't stay home all the time."

"No," he murmured, remembering what he had said to Joseph and Ashley earlier that afternoon.

"But I hadn't decided, yet." Scarlett was saying. "It's been so convenient to have you bring the books home. I just...didn't feel any hurry." She rolled her shoulders and moved away to stand by the sideboard, looking tense and out of sorts.

"What's wrong?" Rhett asked, speaking gently for the first time that night.

"You don't know what it was like last summer," Scarlett muttered. "After you left, Melly dragged me around - oh, everywhere. No one would dare shut their door in _her_ face, even if I was with her. But I know what they were all thinking." Suddenly she spun on her heel, staring him down with steel in her gaze and spine. "I guess it's what you think, too."

Rhett took a sip of his drink to cover a moment of self-flagellation. He shouldn't have left when he did. Thinking of the sleeping baby upstairs, he amended himself - he shouldn't have left at all.

"No," he admitted at last. "I don't think it is. I know Ashley Wilkes. But they," he said, with a vague gesture to encompass the whole of Atlanta society, "know you. Did you really expect otherwise, when India and Archie found you together?" Bile rose in his throat and he stood before she could answer. This wasn't quite the discussion he had intended, but suddenly he wanted to know. "For Christ's sake, Scarlett, what were you thinking?"

To his surprise, he saw tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "I was thinking of the past!" she cried passionately, raising a hand to dash away the tears before they could fall. "It was foolish and stupid. I hate to look back, but he wouldn't stop - and I thought of my mother—" Scarlett looked at him with blazing eyes and squared her jaw. "He was comforting me."

Jealousy squeezed his heart in an iron fist. He felt again the vengeful urge from that night to wrap his hands around her neck, warring with the desire to wrap her instead in his arms and force her to respond to him, not her foolish dreams.

He had chosen one path that night, letting the strings of her corset substitute for his murderous impulses. That night in April, he hadn't touched her gently in years, not since before Bonnie's birth. It hadn't seemed possible to damage their marriage more than she had already done. But now—

Rhett walked evenly across the floor, moving purposefully so as not to spook her, and wrapped his arms around his wife. He felt her stiffen, then relax, and lean her forehead against his chest.

"Like this?" he murmured, with his lips in her hair.

"Yes," she whispered, then shook her head and added, "No," even more quietly.

Rhett felt the pull of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "Which is it, Scarlett?" She tried to pull away, and he held her fast. "Tell me," he said, and buried a kiss in the curls pinned to the side of her head.

Her chest rose with a deep inhale, and he could feel the shape of her breasts pressing against him. "It wasn't like this," she mumbled in a rush, "it was just comfort, from an old friend."

"This isn't comforting?"

"No - yes—"

Rhett chuckled. "You aren't usually this indecisive."

Again, she drew a deep breath, and he felt her body shift against him as she squared her shoulders. It was the familiar sign that she was drawing on a rush of her foolhardy courage.

"I mean it was just friendly, Rhett. I didn't - feel - anything, with Ashley. Not...not like this," she mumbled.

Rhett's arms drew taut with iron strength at her words. He did not answer; for a moment, he forgot even to breathe, as his brain turned only to the task of reconciling the meaning in her statement.

His introspective response did not satisfy Scarlett. With a quick movement of her arms, she flung off his embrace and stepped away. In an instant, he saw that her face was red, but splotchy with distress. Her eyes were emerald with anger even as tears spiked her thick lashes. Her lips parted, but before she could rail at him, he cupped her warm cheeks in his shaking palms and kissed her.

In quick succession, Scarlett froze, then relaxed, then pressed her lips to his with a fervor matching his own, before she gripped his fingers and tore his hands from her face as she pulled away. "No," she panted.

"Yes," he countered, ignoring her attempts to push him away while he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him.

"Rhett!" she protested, pushing at his chest.

"Scarlett. Stop. Honey, stop it." Perhaps it was the endearment, its sincerity as rare as a tropical butterfly in their discourse. She stopped fighting him, though she did not relax.

"Tell me more," he said. "You felt nothing but - friendship - in Ashley's embrace?" The sour words had remarkably little aftertaste in their current context.

Scarlett nodded.

"But that's not how you feel right now."

"Rhett," she protested.

"It isn't seemly," he provided for her, and grinned as she rolled her eyes. "I know you," he murmured, recalling his words from April. So, it seemed, did his wife. She raised defiant eyes to his.

"I'm not crying for the moon," she said, with only a slight quaver. "I don't want Ashley."

Rhett could only nod. He stared down at her, mesmerized by the flame twisting in her bright eyes.

"Rhett," she began, dropping her gaze to look into the distance beyond his shoulder. "Did you mean what you said that night?"

"Some of it," he hedged.

"Rhett…"

His throat was going to close up, but at least that would spare him the indignity of vomiting on her. His stomach roiled and his skin felt ice cold all over. He was afraid to swallow, but he forced the words out.

"Yes," he said shortly. "I meant it."

"Oh," she breathed. One small hand clenched around the lapel of his coat. The other moved tentatively upwards from his chest, stopping with just her fingertips at his shoulder. She licked her lips and Rhett had to stifle a groan. Her hand tugged his coat in what he assumed to be a reflexive movement, until it happened again. He lowered his gaze from her face and observed her pale skin against the dark claret fabric, watching and waiting until she unmistakably pulled at the lapel a third time.

Rhett grinned, an intoxicated pirate's grin, and conceded to her unspoken wishes. He lowered his mouth to hers, and this time her response was immediate and unrevoked. Her lips parted and her body melted against his. The hand on his shoulder completed its journey, curving around the firm muscle until her fingertips were digging into his back. Her fist released its importunate hold on his clothing and he felt instead the slim digits weaving into the hair at the nape of his neck.

Scarlett surprised him yet again with the first, tentative brush of her tongue against his lips, seeking his own.

She hadn't said she loved him, but he knew they had taken a real step forward onto a new path. The axe above his head was gone, the dread of repeating their history since Bonnie's birth clearing from his soul. He no longer needed to fear that the last few months had been a cruel trick, another honeymoon to be ripped away.

That night, he did not dream.

 _fin._

* * *

 _Y'all I am so sorry this took so long. I went on family vacation the week after my last post and didn't have time for fic; since then I have been caught up in a perfect storm of work and life that has just kept me ridiculously busy. I wanted to take another look at this last chapter, maybe edit it, maybe not have it be the end, but I am not going to get to that. When I can carve out time for writing again I want to get back to my long term WIP. On that note, I will probably be pretty quiet for awhile, as my next story is nowhere near being ready to post and not even halfway written. I might have surprise short fics, if the inspiration hits while I'm working on the longer piece. Thank you for your patience with the end of_ Awake _and I hope you come back when I have more stories to share!_


End file.
